The Light and Darkness Anthology
by Lunalelle
Summary: The R rating is general. There will be many different ratings per story. This is a collection of short stories devoted to the pairing of HermioneTom Riddle and Voldemort.
1. Hermione's New Boyfriend

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**Title:** The Light and Darkness Anthology (01)  
**Author name:** Lunalelle  
**Author email:**  
**Category:** Romance  
**Sub Category:** Drama  
**Keywords:** Hermione Voldemort Tom Riddle  
**Rating:** R  
**Spoilers:** SS/PS, CoS, PoA, GoF, FB, QTTA, OoTP  
**Summary:** Hermione has a new boyfriend. And you'll never guess who it is.  
**DISCLAIMER:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. Many of the various short stories that you'll find here are a result of the Beginning Exchange challenge on S.S. Light and Darkness. I've used the following people's beginning from the Beginning Exchange Thread: **fable2112, Hypatia, JessicaCMalfoy, Kazaera, Quintrisha, RobinLady, fishno12, Ginny Riddle, Draconia Malfoy, Countess of Whatnot, PhoenixRoseOfHope, Winterbloom, Cosmica Black, Lady Silver, DarkLadyofSlytherin, Tess, AEprk01, red dragon, teenyaileeny, Vanity Kidman, Avlucia,** and **thescarletwoman**. A few other ideas are either original or an idea present on the Light & Darkness thread in SCUSA.  
**Author notes:** Hello. This is something a bit new for FictionAlley. I've been permitted to write an anthology dedicated to the SHIP I sail. I'm not going to immediately reveal it to everyone, because... well, that would take the fun out of everything. But this work will not be chaptered, per se, but has the thread of the same ship through the entire work. I was inspired by the Beginning Exchange challenge at the Light & Darkness Cookie Jar.  
  
The following ficlet is more of an introduction and isn't fully developed such as other stories will be. I'll explain a bit more fully at the end of the story.  
  
I do not recommend reading all the short stories at once or else they'll get monotonous, but I encourage you to take your taste here, and if you like what you find, or you want more to try, read another. (Of course, that'll be when I post more, but rest assured, I _will_ post more. The fics will stretch over many genres, and some will have more than one chapter. All right, enough rambling. Enjoy!

Hermione's New Boyfriend

**Harry looked at Hermione and said, "No offense, Hermione, but your boyfriend is a bit... um..."**

**"Scary," Ron said.**

Hermione looked up from her toast and scrambled eggs with a suspicious glint in her eyes.

"What do you mean by that?" she said carefully.

Ron and Harry grinned at each other and waggled their eyebrows suggestively in Hermione's direction.

"Oh, come on, Hermione," Harry said. "Did you think we wouldn't find out? It's written on your face. You actually drift off during History of Magic class. You didn't used to do that. You used to poke us until we woke up. You used to write down every single word Binns said. And your cheeks are red when you do."

"Yeah," Ron added. "Our 'Mione can't hide anything from us."

"And..." Hermione ventured. "You're okay with it? I thought you'd be upset."

"Upset?" Harry said. "Why would be upset?"

"Yeah, he's scary, but I've got to admit," Ron shrugged, "he's perfect for you. Not my first choice, god knows, but... if he's the one _you_ chose..."

"Well, I agree with you--he _is_ perfect for me," Hermione said, "but he's not... I thought you'd curse me into next Tuesday if you found out."

"Nah," Ron said. "Remember, in fourth year, I figured out you were a girl. And last year, I figured out you weren't my girl. This year, I figured out you were someone else's. And he's one lucky man."

Hermione narrowed her eyes. "You really _are_ taking this rather well. Is there something you haven't told me yet? Like, did you put something in my fruit juice and you're just waiting for it to take effect?"

"Well," Harry said, sneaking a glance at Ron, "there _is_ something we're not telling you."

Hermione took a shaky drink from her goblet.

"Hermione," Ron said, as though he was going to tell her she was deathly ill, "don't panic. But, how long have you been sleeping with him?"

Fruit juice blew from her mouth and rained on Neville, who sat across from her. After a hasty "Sorry, Neville," and a cleaning charm, Hermione turned back to her friends.

"What do you mean, 'sleeping with him'?" she asked.

"Shagging him, shaking the bed, tending the broomstick, charming the wand, whatever you want to call it." Ron punched her shoulder. "Ginny told us you've been looking thoroughly shagged for a while. And you sneak out nights... without us, which tells us you're not stealing potions ingredients."

"And now that Ginny's brought it to our attention," Harry said, "it's easy enough to see. You've been looking like--how did Ginny put it?--like there a sun burning inside you. Everyone's noticed."

"Does everyone _know_?" Hermione said, worried.

"Don't worry, your secret's safe with us," Ron replied cheerfully. "But you still haven't told us. How long?"

Hermione leaned over her plate and mumbled into her eggs.

"Didn't quite hear you, Hermione," Harry said.

"Since this summer," Hermione mumbled a little louder.

Harry grinned. "Is he good? After all, he's old enough to know what to do in bed."

Hermione looked at Harry. "You're still taking this extremely well. Are you sure you're not going to explode on me?"

"Hermione, stop worrying so much," Ron said, rolling his eyes. "Harry and I have discussed it, and we decided that it's okay for our 'Mione to be a little rebellious."

Hermione looked at both of them now. "I'm not sure whether this is just a _little_ rebellious."

"Okay, maybe you're right," Harry conceded, "but you've got to have fun every once in a while. It's nice to know that you can have fun without us. And even though we want to, we can't control everything you do."

Hermione chanced a small smile. "All right. He's great in bed. Does that make you feel better?"

"How great?" Ron asked wickedly.

Hermione blushed. "How does amazing sound?"

"So, Ginny was right," Harry said. "She guessed that the whole evil persona was a cover for passion. Must admit, that wasn't the first thing that went through my head when I first saw him. Sex-god definitely wasn't on the top ten list that day. And..." Harry's face contorted as the images surfaced in his mind. "I'd really rather not think about it in that much detail."

"Yeah, thanks, Harry," Ron said. "Now I'll have nightmares about Hermione sleeping with him."

"Nightmares... sound about right," Hermione said, hoping that the conversation had run its course.

"So, how many times a week?" Ron popped up.

"Ron!" Hermione shrieked indignantly. "Since when are you so interested in my sex life?"

"Since you got one," Ron answered.

Hermione sniffed. "Once a week. We make up for it then. Now, can we get off this topic? I'm glad you're... okay with it--even though I don't know why--but I'd rather not discuss it with you in detail."

They were silent for a while.

Hermione took another sip from her goblet.

"That Snape's a lucky bastard," Ron said longingly.

Neville got spit on again, and after Hermione cleaned him up, Neville shook his head and left the table, muttering to himself.

"Who told you I was sleeping with _Snape_?" Hermione asked.

"Ginny," Harry said, staring. Finally, comprehension dawned. "It's not Snape."

"No!" Hermione answered. Her stomach twisted in revulsion, but then churned as she realized how bad it could get now.

"Then who have you been shagging since this summer?" Harry asked.

"Shagged at least once a week, no less," Ron added.

"I..." Hermione stammered. "I-I-I can't tell you."

"Why not?" Harry asked, raising an eyebrow.

"You'll kill me. Literally." Hermione got up and tried to run for it, but Harry jumped up and grabbed her arm.

"Who have you been dating if it's not Snape?" Harry asked. This time, there was no smile on his face.

"I... let go of me, Harry!"

"I know a spell," Ginny piped up from behind them. She jabbed her wand at Hermione's back and said, "_Revelato libido_."

A word shimmering in satiny red slid from Hermione's mouth like a ribbon and formed a name.

"What?!" Ron bellowed.

Hermione took advantage of both his, Harry's, and Ginny's shock to yank her arm away and run. She made it out of the Great Hall before the impact fully hit them. Ginny fell to the floor in a dead faint.

"Voldemort?" Harry muttered weakly.

---

Hermione burst through the door to the throne room. A number of conversing Death Eaters turned around to look at her, but since she was such a normal occurrence, they only spared her a passing glance. It did not matter that she was not one of them.

"They know," Hermione said.

The Dark Lord's head lifted so that she could see the serenity of his eyes. He sat on his throne with the air of a king who would rather be somewhere else, but those passive eyes lit up when they saw her, just as they lit up when she came to him in his chambers.

"Did you expect they'd never know?" Voldemort said calmly. "We knew this would happen."

"I didn't think it would happen so quickly. I thought you'd reveal it when we were in the midst of the final battle, throw me in Harry's face, and then we'd try to kill each other. We've known that. But now? They thought I was with Snape, and we went about the bush until I _realized_ that they thought I was with Snape."

Voldemort raised a brow. "Severus?" He pondered that for a bit. "I suppose there's a bit of fallen angelic poetry in that. What did their faces look like?"

"I don't know. I ran too quickly." Hermione's hands shook with anxiety. "I think Ginny fainted."

"Ah, little Miss Weasley, I assume," Voldemort said smoothly, relishing the taste of the name.

Hermione, distraught to distraction, ran her hands through her hair and pulled.

"Hermione." This name was not tasted. It was caressed, licked, and loved. The word throbbed with its own lust that slid around Hermione's body in a silken shroud. She closed her eyes as Voldemort drew her to him.

"They'll be coming after me," she whispered.

"You knew what you were getting into," he murmured against her lips, not yet kissing her. He waited.

"I suppose I did," Hermione said, and she pressed her mouth against his, letting his tongue have its way. Her hands untangled themselves from her hair to hold him closer. It was only a matter of time before she straddled his legs, relishing the feeling of his talented fingers as they flickered teasingly against her breasts. She moaned as his mouth drifted to her neck and tested the sensitive flesh under her jaw.

"Oh god, please tell me I'm not seeing this," Harry said from the double doors at the front of the throne room.

Hermione opened her eyes and looked at her best friend. She could not resist a small smile and a squeal as Voldemort pulled her against his erection.

Harry fell to the ground. Dumbledore quickly came up from behind him and, after taking a look at the tableau, left without disturbing the lovers. Harry woke up five days later in St. Mungo's, having suffered shock and a mild heart attack.

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**Author notes:** Okay, as I indicated in my pre-fic A/Ns, this is an introduction. I do not address how Voldemort and Hermione got together, nor does the pairing seem realistic at the point. I'm sort of breaking the concept to you gently. If you want something heavy and explanation-full, check out my fics "Dangerous Games" at Dark Arts or "Abyss" at Schnoogle. Some of the stories will be more explanatory than this.  
  
Don't think that this is dark!Hermione. She and Voldemort know that what they are doing is never going to work, but they're willing to take a bit of happiness where they can get it. The premise is a bit unrealistic, but it was meant to have a touch of humor. Tell me what you think. And you can flame and say how squicky the pairing is if you want. But keep in mind that we have an entire ship devoted to the pairing (with very loyal followers), Voldemort isn't _old_ yet (in wizarding years, he's only middle age), and their intelligence is unmatched by everyone except perhaps Dumbledore (Dumbledore's powerful, but we haven't gotten a good glimpse of intelligence levels yet). Besides, there have been less likely pairings with a vast following.  
  
I will, incidentally, also pair Hermione with Tom Riddle within this anthology, so if you want to wait for one of those, you can.  
  
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	2. A Fine Line

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**Title:** The Light and Darkness Anthology (02)  
**Author name:** Lunalelle  
**Author email:**  
**Category:** Romance  
**Sub Category:** Angst  
**Keywords:** Hermione Tom Voldemort fire  
**Rating:** R  
**Spoilers:** SS/PS, CoS, PoA, GoF, FB, QTTA, OoTP  
**Summary:** Hermione is bound to Tom, summoned from his diary to defeat his older self.  
**DISCLAIMER:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. Many of the various short stories that you'll find here are a result of the Beginning Exchange challenge on S.S. Light and Darkness. I've used the following people's beginning from the Beginning Exchange Thread: **fable2112, Hypatia, JessicaCMalfoy, Kazaera, Quintrisha, RobinLady, fishno12, Ginny Riddle, Draconia Malfoy, Countess of Whatnot, PhoenixRoseOfHope, Winterbloom, Cosmica Black, Lady Silver, DarkLadyofSlytherin, Tess, AEprk01, red dragon, teenyaileeny, Vanity Kidman, Avlucia,** and **thescarletwoman**. A few other ideas are either original or an idea present on the Light & Darkness thread in SCUSA.  
**Author notes:** I forgot to say that the last story had a beginning written by **Ginny Riddle**. The following is a slightly altered beginning of **Hypatia**. In case you didn't figure it out, the bolded beginnings were presented at the Beginning Exchange and don't belong to me.  
  
This is only the second serious short story I've written. So tell me how you like it. This is your birthday present from me. I'm turning 18 on Oct. 24!

A Fine Line

**There was that look again, unmistakable, the desire and longing burning through the layer of age-old hate, the want breaking through the veils of anger, that stormy glance from the grown man's eyes that said 'My enemy, my foe... come to me, and be mine...' There was no magic she could use to resist it.**

Though the Lord knew that she had tried. She had tried for ten years, watching his boyish charms settle into the irresistible maturity of adulthood. She did not follow that far behind. The simultaneous stillness that seemed to coil around their bodies tensed at their nearness, but still seemed to reach out while withdrawing farther within them.

When their eyes met, the tension was palpable.

Tom was undeniably the hero of the age, on the same pedestal as the late Albus Dumbledore and the still-living Harry Potter. With the help of the ingenuity of a certain Potions Master and the remains of an old diary splattered in ink, the sixteen-year-old memory of the Tom Riddle was restored to a physical form. Ginny went through a relapse of her severe depression, but after Headmaster Dumbledore went through the Ceremony of Magical Restrictions with Miss Weasley, the best psychologists of St. Mungo's found her a more reasonable subject, and her recovery took place over half the time expected of her.

Tom made it clear after his restoration that his intent still focused on the same path his older self took, and he expressed a desire to join himself with a coded letter to Draco that was fortunately intercepted by Ministry Enforcement Officials. It was after that incident that Tom's magic was bound further.

But the second binding was unnecessary. After Draco spoke with his father about the restoration, Lucius immediately told his master, and Lord Voldemort responded with a blatant attack upon Hogsmeade, A tall, black-haired boy was slain in the middle of the snow. The blood had been manipulated to form letters, like a perversion of a perverse boy's prank:

_I am Lord Voldemort. You are only Tom Riddle._

The antagonism his double showed infuriated Tom, and he swore to aid Dumbledore in his fight against the Dark Lord. Dumbledore was not fooled into believing that Tom changed his mind about his true loyalties, but the Headmaster accepted the formidable help nonetheless.

The newspapers went wild with the story of young Voldemort clashing with his future self. Tabloids loosed the sensational exploits of Lord Voldemort's illicit sexual liaisons with himself.

As a precaution, Dumbledore wanted Tom to be watched, twenty-four hours a day, which required a different kind of binding, a more intimate and... permanent connection that was virtually unbreakable by anything short of death.

An advertisement was placed in the _Daily Prophet _for someone who was willing to be Tom's partner. At first, responses were not very forthcoming, although there were a few, but then Tom had the vain idea of adding his picture into the request. True to his judgment, more and more offers came in until there were more than a hundred applicants, the point at which Tom and Dumbledore drew the line.

A personal invitation was sent to each of the applicants to a Feast at Hogwarts where Tom would choose his partner.

Those who sent their replies with sighs on their lips from staring at the handsome picture they had Spell-O-Taped to their office or study walls spiffed up, dabbing on their perfume, donning expensive but understated jewelry and elegant dress robes to set off their best physical assets. Those who sent their reply in all seriousness only dressed according to the weight of the responsibility.

Tom walked through the room of volunteers, sizing up the competitors, noting the backhanded insults typical of catty girls as well as the utter indifference of the trained Aurors or Unspeakables or St. Mungo's researchers. The Feast became increasingly dynamic when he began his seemingly arbitrary interviews with the applicants. Dumbledore waited in the wings, watching the sophisticated and confident, young man ply his charisma like an art. Even Snape set aside his usual disregard for such fripperies as Feasts to watch an early master at work.

Tom's choice was a surprise to everyone but Snape and Dumbledore. He selected not the most street-wise Auror, nor the prettiest or sauciest wench, nor even Harry Potter, a remarkably ironic early applicant.

Studious, nervous, still innocent Miss Hermione Granger. At least, that was what Tom expected. What he had not counted on was Hermione's notorious stubbornness, her unparalleled talent for spells, and a force of will equal to Tom's own.

Hermione herself was weak at the knees at the binding ceremony, not from attraction, but from fear at what she perceived as a bout of recklessness and martyrdom. But the real nightmare was the night after the binding when they realized they had to share lodgings. Then, the tension was only the silence. Or the fights.

And over the course of the war, they managed to act decent around each other long enough every day to work with each other along with the rest of the Order.

Then, in a twist of fate, the Dark Lord managed to defeat the Dark Lord by the calling of his magic, a spell he and Hermione developed based on the Ceremony of Magical Restrictions by binding Tom's own magic to himself, a double helix of magic, one side Tom, and on the other, Voldemort's unraveled magic, but also his life, which was so irreparably tangled in transfigurations and other alterations that it too was ripped from the snake-like shell of Lord Voldemort. The glassy red eyes and stone cold form of the former Dark Lord was a scene that shook Tom more than he cared to admit, and while the wizarding world celebrated, he cloistered himself in the flat he shared with Hermione. Hermione, feeling pity that she usually reserved for Harry, set up wards around the flat to keep reporters, admirers, and curious spectators.

They never mentioned what happened in Tom's room that night.

After his drive and purpose was fulfilled, Tom tried with all his might to resist the inexorable pull of the second binding. His rages shook the flat, and Hermione was compelled to firmly establish the Silencing wards. She took his temper with a grain of salt, saying that he chose her, and she was unable to find work--it was fortunate that the Ministry paid her for putting up with him. He would yell back that his double was a psychopathic madman, how likely was it that he was going to find a job, at least she was paid.... And so the feud within the house went on over the years. All they could do was slam the doors to their respective rooms and focus on experimentation, unsolved problems that the Department of Mysteries set them on so that they could have _something _to do.

But when he wasn't yelling at her...

Those eyes, watching her movements--he was silent, postured as a gravestone, but the eyes burned with an intensity that Hermione almost did not understand. Except that the more he watched her, the more the fire within his eyes began to grow inside of her. It writhed and clenched in spirals of brilliant energy. In the darkness of her bedroom, she heard the subtle creaks of his bed when he would lay down, the sounds of his pacing, even the scratching of his quill when she listened hard enough. And the fire only grew still greater until his eyes consumed her.

What happened was inevitable. The breakthrough in tracing untraceable poisons was only a catalyst. She ruffled through her papers, shocked at the simplicity of the equations, checking over her work to see whether she had miscalculated--it couldn't be this easy.

Like the fire, it grew, but it was not fire, it was a wellspring, a bubbling of excitement with the warmth of satisfaction. The geyser sprang in a boiling laughter that broke through all confines, pouring out of her mouth in floods, gushing with pride, accomplishment, relief, and bordering on hysteria. The laughter carried in waves through the tenuous wards between the two rooms, and Tom came bursting in to see the insane tableau of Hermione fallen to the floor in delight.

His marble countenance did not alter, but he walked to the desk and looked at the equations in the calculating way at which he approached everything. Hermione managed to sit up, balancing herself by the palms of her hands, giggling, but her gaze took on the pensiveness resulting from such a shift in emotions that let the nerves bare.

And then the fire hissed against the water, steaming until it clouded her vision, clouded her mind, until all she could see was him, with his burning eyes as they turned to hers, acknowledgment of her success.

She did not know when his hand took hers to help her to her feet. She did not know when Tom took the sheets of parchment and set them on her bed. She only knew when Tom pressed her against the desk and began kissing her with all the intensity that he had in his eyes. Flame that joins flame creates a forest fire, an unstoppable ravaging beast of primitive lust and intelligent desire. His mouth, his skin, his tongue on her--they were a furnace. She gasped for breath in the sweltering heat, held the heat closer with all the passion of what she hated and loved the most.

When the fire had returned to its lair--not left, no, it never left completely--Hermione lay consumed next to him, the sheets of parchment now strewn about the room like ashes. Tom's head rested against her stomach; his eyes were closed and his breathing was even. She stroked his hair. The remnants of the fire burned in Tom's cheeks, and on hers as well, a contented warmth of an afterglow.

The wards between the room were broken, burned away. The coils of their passion surrounded them both, drawing the enemies closer into an alliance across troubled waters. Hermione's eyelids fluttered, and she sank into the depths of sleep, entwined with her lover, soothed by the rocking motion of their hearts.

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**Author notes:** This is not meant to be a play off of **Maid of Many Names**' fic "Wounds Unhealed," but it has some resemblance.  
  
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	3. Reflection

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**Title:** The Light & Darkness Anthology (03)  
**Author name:** Lunalelle  
**Author email:**  
**Category:** General  
**Sub Category:** Romance  
**Keywords:** Tom Riddle Hermione Intangible time  
**Rating:** G  
**Spoilers:** SS/PS, CoS, PoA, GoF, FB, QTTA, OoTP  
**Summary:** Hermione sees a mysterious figure from the past in a trophy plate during a detention.  
**DISCLAIMER:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.  
**Author notes:** This is a Christmas gift for all my readers and reviewers. I've had this in my head for two months, and I hope you like it. This one isn't a Beginning Exchange fic. This is my own. I think it came from a dream.

Hermione wanted to moan, groan, whine, and otherwise annoy Filch so much that he would let her out of this unfair, unfair, unfair detention. She almost wished she actually had done something so intolerable, but unfortunately she had to get caught by one Professor Snape, who had looked like his Christmas gift had finally come after six years of waiting. She really wished she had punched him in the face--in that smug smile--when he found her.

And what was her great transgression? Had she been brewing Polyjuice or been sneaking around in Harry's Invisibility Cloak? No, she had been sleepwalking of all things!

Ever since the Department of Mysteries, she tried to hide from Harry how much it disturbed her, everything that happened there. He had enough guilt on his chest without knowing that she had nightmares and sleepwalked her way first through her house--and once or twice down her street where she was almost run over--then through Gryffindor Tower. Apparently, she had sleepwalked her way out through the portrait hold. Snape caught her while she trailed aimlessly about the corridors. Without heeding the advice not to interrupt a somnambulist, his acerbic tongue started her from the nightmare. She thought that maybe there was a touch of pity when he looked down at her as she screamed and screamed, falling to the ground.

But he certainly had not mercy. He took fifteen points from Gryffindor--thinking about it, _that_ may have been mercy. He would have taken fifty from Harry. However, unable to pass up the opportunity to punish one of the Golden Trio, he had set her to a week with Filch, cleaning the trophy room from floor to ceiling without magic, just ordinary Muggle cleaning supplies.

She was tempted to curse Snape into the depths of the Forbidden Forest, but since he was likely to fit right in, she did not see any reason for it.

So she continued mopping the floor with a mop that was too long for her. She was so busy that she did not notice an oddity that blended in so well with all the quirks of Hogwarts that it was positively unnoticeable to begin with.

One of the trophies in the personal awards display case did not reflect Hermione's toil--there was merely an empty room.

---

On the second day evening of her detention, she was tasked with polishing the glass. It did not help that Filch occasionally came over to check her progress and leaned with a hand against the glass, usually a part she had just finished, smudging it again. He would leer nastily at her and tell her she missed a spot.

Maybe the Forbidden Forest was too good for the Potions Master.

And rubbing at the surprisingly clear pane of glass, Hermione, in all her perceptiveness, noticed. No reflection. And it was not even one of those frosted plates. It was pure silver, round and engraved in embellished letters.

_Professor Henry Thyme_

_History of Magic_

_1891_

_"For __Time_ _devoted."_

She peered more closely, with her nose a half-inch away from the glass. No matter how hard she looked, she could not see herself or Filch, or even Mrs. Norris, who had come in to alert Filch to a misdemeanor.

"Quicker, girl," Filch snarled, adjusting his grimy coat and glaring at her. "Longer you stare madly into the case, longer I have to watch you. Expect you to be finished with that one when I get back."

Hermione sighed, then began working on another, dirtier pane. She would investigate tomorrow, after Transfiguration when she had a few free hours.

She got into Gryffindor Tower at eleven, when the common room was still moderately active with procrastinators. She sighed. She still had Arithmancy problems to work.

Hermione would have told Harry and Ron about the unusual discovery in the trophy room, but Harry was his usual oversensitive, broody self who she had to be careful with these days, and Ron was nowhere in sight.

_Oh well, I'll check it out tomorrow and tell them when they're more amenable, _she thought, _I guess I should finish those problems and attempt to sleep peacefully._

She gave one more concerned look at Harry staring into the fire, but she retrieved her homework materials and began to work.

---

She almost forgot about the trophy plate altogether after she woke up in one of the armchairs before the fire in the common room. Several people saw her, and she had to say she woke up during the night and came downstairs for a small walk and accidentally fell asleep in the chair. Ron did not quite believe her, but when she shot a pointed look at Harry, he did not ask.

It was only when she thought about her detention later that evening that she remembered the empty room in the reflection. She excused herself from the Gryffindor table, leaving Harry to stare at a full plate and Ron to stuff his face. She shook her head as she compared their coping techniques--if Harry was even trying to cope at all. She was concerned for him, but pushing him like she had last year clearly had not worked, not if he had gone so out of control that his Occlumency lessons were abandoned altogether and he felt compelled to lie to her. She did not want him to lie to her again.

She glared at Mrs. Norris as she headed toward the trophy room. Mrs. Norris glared right back in the disdainful, bored way that only cats and Malfoy seemed to accomplish. But she was not doing anything wrong, so Mrs. Norris could not report her or anything. Not that it would stop her if the nosy cat got it into her head to cause trouble. Hermione dismissed Mrs. Norris and focused on the trophy room. She would have to polish the wood of the case later, but that should be as easy as polishing the glass if Filch did not purposely sabotage her efforts.

At the entrance of the trophy room, she paused. Maybe it was just a trick plate, not really anything. Maybe she had just been driven to fatigue when she saw it. Maybe she had been hallucinating.

Maybe her subconscious was just looking for a way for her to ignore the plate and walk back to the dinner table, back to the semblance of normalcy in the midst of a war.

The sudden aversion, an impediment to knowledge that usually would have Hermione sparkling with the prospect of something new to learn, put her on high alert. If she felt like this, then the plate must be something important that did not want to be disturbed. Or that was so important that something else was warning her.

That was it, she had to investigate. If Harry was a zombie, she had to make the rash decisions for him. Squaring her shoulders, she approached the display case that held the trophy plate. It was not an empty room anymore. Her own reflection was still absent, but now there was a person sitting in the middle of the room, incanting.

There was a boy. From what she could see of him, he had dark hair in a longish cut that would be old-fashioned in her day and age, and his back was so straight, as though he thought he would be whipped if he slouched. He was not holding a wand. It was set beside him, parallel to his body. His hands were outstretched, and she could see the contours of his jaw and cheekbones shift, so he must be doing Intangible casting. It was not quite wandless magic, which Hermione was almost sure not even Dumbledore could do. Intangibles still worked through a wand, but the wizard or witch did not have to actually handle the wand in order for the magic to flow through it. There were few spells that were Intangible, and Hermione's eyebrows rose in admiration as a beam of light shot down over him, creating a red-gold halo.

The boy started to convulse, and Hermione tensed. How could she go to him? She looked behind her. No boy. What was it that she was seeing? The boy collapsed onto his back, and she could see his face. He was handsome, well sculptured like his hands. Pale, with dark eyes that were wide as he bit his lips against the obvious pain he was feeling. He looked older than she, maybe seventeen or eighteen. He had a Head Boy badge pinned to the lapel of his school robes--his _Hogwarts _robes! Her eyes widened. This was not a Head Boy of her time. This was not Ernie Macmillan by any means. Ernie was not this good-looking and not nearly this powerful. She was almost more transfixed than she was worried for a moment. When his seizure stopped and he slumped on the dirty floor, her worry returned, and she peered earnestly to ascertain whether his Intangible had been too draining. For a wizard with less than a certain amount of power, an Intangible could kill. She waited with bated breath for movement.

She let out a sigh of relief when his arm twitched, and he blinked. She jerked away. It was like his eyes had connected with hers, but when she cautiously approached the plate again, he was not looking at her anymore. He was rubbing his head, looking around with a self-satisfied grin on his face. He retrieved his wand and stood up. Hermione was in awe. Seeing him from the front was better than from the back. Like Dumbledore when he was furious, he radiated power like heat. Hermione would not be surprised if she was drooling down the glass that she had just recently cleaned. Intangible also required a great deal of discipline, and so many wizards did not know about them. This wizard was clearly intelligent--he was Head Boy, and he knew of obscure spells that required a great deal of power. This was an ideal boy. Not like Ron.

She winced as she remembered the fevered snog in the train compartment. They had both frozen with their tongues still intertwined and pulled away. It was just... wrong. It felt good, but it was... wrong. It was like she was kissing someone in third year. But this boy... definitely a seventh year, definitely someone who knew what he was doing. Of course, he could have no social life, but looking at him... how could anyone resist that eye candy?

Okay, maybe it was easy to say while she had a space of time between them. She knew that this was a different time--probably past, or else the vision would be a bit blurrier. If he were in her time, she would bet that she would not even notice him. It was sort of like her secret crush on Cary Grant. If he actually walked up to her, she would dismiss him, treat him like a normal human being, like Ron or someone--but watching him on screen, she could giggle and fantasize all she liked. That was what she was doing now. But still... Head Boy and looking like that....

His eyes passed over the case again, and her heart skipped a beat when his eyes seemed to focus on hers. But he did not react, so she suspected it was once again a product of a cursory glance. Still smiling surreptitiously--and deliciously--he exited the room.

"Oh look, my pretty," Filch murmured to his cat, loud enough for Hermione to give a little shriek and jump away from the glass as though she had been doing something naughty. "Someone is ready for her next detention."

He threw her a container of wood polish with a rag tied around it. "Enjoy," he said, smiling nastily. Hermione wrinkled her nose and complied. When she finally came to the trophy case with the plate, the room in the reflection was empty again.

---

When she was let out, again around eleven at night, she was atremble with excitement. She could not possibly keep this to herself. Of course, Ron and Harry would not understand the significance and complexities of Intangibles, but she could brush over it by telling them that it was difficult. They could understand something that simple. But this was too strange, too wild not to tell them. Maybe it would bring them out of the rut of self-pity that they both seemed to fall into in their own ways.

But she found them rowing. Over her.

"If you still like her, why don't you grab her and snog her in a broom closet and stop annoying me with your bloody moaning?" Harry sniped.

"Look, mate, you weren't there when I _did_ grab her and snog her in a train compartment. You were sulking in another compartment, but it just didn't work. I'm not _moaning_ about not having a girlfriend. I'm _moaning_ about the fact that she hasn't been talking to us. I'm _moaning _about the fact that you don't care and are pushing us away."

"I've an easy right to sulk. I owe myself the opportunity to sulk, mope, skulk, and just wait for someone to come after me, trying to kill everyone that I care about to get to me," Harry said.

"Harry, contrary to popular belief, not everything is about you! Hermione's never been this quiet with us. It's like she doesn't need us. And it's more than not needing us around. She's lying to us. She's lying to us about what she does at night. I don't know whether it's something that I need to worry about, but I do because she feels that she needs to lie to us." Ron paused. "Or maybe she just feels like she needs to lie to you so that you don't explode in her face."

"I wouldn't explode in her face!" Harry shouted. "She can come to me at any time without me exploding in her face!"

"Sure, Harry," Ron said. "I'm going upstairs. Maybe Hermione can come to me if she needs to talk. I hope she doesn't come to you if you're going to explode in her face. And I suggest you take a look at what you're doing and what's happening... then get over it. You've still got people who are _here_ and who care about you. We're growing up. Maybe you should join us. Good night."

Hermione knew better than to walk in, and she sat outside the portrait hole for about ten minutes, running over the five ways to clean a ruined potion. She found potions oddly relaxing when she was not in Snape's classroom with that bat breathing down her neck. That bloody bat.

When had Ron become so mature?

After she thought she had let enough time simmer, she sneaked through the portrait hole. Harry did not see her--she was glad--and she headed up to the sixth-year boys' dormitory.

"Ron," she whispered through the open door. She heard snoring from Ron's bed, an indistinct murmur, something about a 'baby ship.' Hermione stifled a smile and a touch of disappointment. She closed the door and went to her own dormitory to do homework without having to confront Harry. He would have to work through his problem alone.

---

Tapestry cleaning today. She would be in there until after midnight, she knew--with Filch's rickety ladder and special fabric solution and his annoying, beady eyes looking for something wrong with her technique just so that he could drive her absolutely crazy. She would not be able to look into the trophy plate during the detention, so she would have to go after her afternoon Potions class.

Harry was in the class with her, and they sat next to each other and everything, but they did not talk. Hermione noticed that he kept glancing her way. Maybe he had thought about what Ron said, but Hermione was going to let him make the first move--she would wait until _he_ was ready. Of course, it may have something to do with the fact that he found her in the common room that morning, dealing out a game of solitaire with Parvati's Tarot cards. Like Snape, he woke her up like he shouldn't, but unlike Snape, he did not berate her for it, just asked if she was okay. She lied and said it was a childhood thing that was probably coming back with hormones. Harry could tell she lied, but he did not say anything else. Just let her.

She wished he wouldn't.

Snape was his usual snarky self, but he did slip her a Dreamless Sleep potion when no one was looking. She did not even notice until she went to the trophy room and reached into her bookbag to return the quill. She lifted the vial to the light, still baffled that Snape would do such a thing, even if he was a part of the Order and a spy for the Light. He was supposed to hate her. And maybe he did. She did not know what to think of it, but she was perfectly prepared to take the potion later that night. Maybe a dreamless sleep would keep her from sleepwalking.

Unfortunately, the trophy room in the reflection was empty again. She peered more closely.

Then screamed.

His eyes, his dark, deep eyes were right there, staring into hers. She jumped back about a foot, but the face did not move from the plate. The boy smiled at her, the same surreptitious smile he had when he left the room yesterday. Hermione stared back, still a measure away from the glass. The boy lifted his hand and beckoned her forward with a finger.

She paused, but she edged toward the trophy case. She could see him laugh.

He held up a piece of parchment on which he had written: _My name is Tom. Who are you?_

Hermione fell to her knees and began rummaging through her bookbag for the quill she had replaced, an ink bottle, and a sheet of parchment. She started writing frantically on the parchment.

_My name is Jane._

She knew better than to give her real name to an unknown person, especially after the Riddle diary fiasco. She was not prepared to completely reveal her identity and everything about her life just because a good-looking boy from the past asked her.

_This is strange, isn't it?_ he wrote.

_When did you discover it? _she wrote back.

_When I saw your face yesterday. __I hoped that you would come back around the same time. You realize what this is?_

_A time window is coming to mind_, she said. _But that's me making up a name. Is there an official name?_

_Time window is appropriate. I've never read anything about this._ He was grinning now, and he wrote quickly, _Wish we could talk properly.__ This could get old quickly._

Hermione found herself smiling back. _No one you know has a Dictaquill, do they?_

He looked confused.

Hermione winced and wrote, _Must not be around when you are._

The confusion on his face turned pensive. He sat on the ground to write something a bit more lengthy and thought-out. He held it up to the plate. She read: _If you aren't from my time or close,__ you have to be from the future. This means that we have to be careful, don't we? With time and everything. In fact, maybe we should just walk away from this._

Hermione just wrote against the case. _You're right. This could be dangerous. Something wrong could be said. I've already revealed the Dictaquill_._ But I do want to ask you one question that has nothing to do with what time you're in: Where did you learn how to do an Intangible?_

His eyebrows rose. _Where did you hear about them?_

_I read about them._

_In __Forces of Will_

She wrote frantically, excited that someone had read it. _Yeah, __and have you read _

She stopped writing as she realized that publication was later than Forces of Will__ She crossed the words out and just rewrote _Yeah._

_Time mistake?_

She nodded.

_I have a question for you that __is__ time related. Can I ask? You don't have to answer._

She nodded again.

_Is the Dark Lord Voldemort__ reigning in your time?_

Hermione's heart stopped. She backed away from the plate, slowly and carefully.

_Tom Riddle_, she mouthed. He raised an eyebrow, and his relaxed face hardened as though it had turned to stone. _Stay away from here._

He held up the parchment that was now almost covered in his unnaturally neat writing. _Don't be afraid of me. I am not someone for you to be afraid of. _

She wrote in large letters on the other side of her parchment about four feet away from the plate. _Why not? You know who you are. I'm not entirely sure why you're asking, but I'm not going to talk to you anymore._

_But you know about the Intangibles. No one else__ seems to know__ about them._ He was writing up against the glass. The neatness of the hand was made spiky in haste, and Hermione spared him the minute. _You apparently know who I am. I don't know how, but it means that I'm someone that has made an impact. I've done what I wanted to do. But I want to talk to you. Not as Voldemort. I'm just Tom. __That's all that I wanted. I'm glad you know me. I don't know exactly what that means to you. But I like the way you look, I like the way you think, and I like the way you smile. I'm a human boy, Jane. I don't know when you are. You know when I am. You're the one with the power here. __All I can do is talk. All I want to do is talk.__ Please. I'm powerful, Jane. But I can't do anything through this plate if you're an age away.__ I want to know you._

_I don't want to know you, _she wrote simply. _This needs to stop now._

_You'll never meet anyone like me. And you know it._

Hermione paused in her effort to return her writing materials to her bookbag. Instead, she grabbed a new sheet of parchment and began to write. She nearly broke the quill. _Yes, I know you. And I can't do this. You're a charmer and an evil person, and __I__ don't want to know you like you want to know me. Sure, you're intelligent. Sure, you're powerful, but you're no one I want to know. And I'm stopping this now._

She let her parchment drop, and she approached the trophy case. With a deft _Alohomora_, she opened the case. Hermione took the plate in hand, prepared to dash it upon the floor. Tom's mouth opened in a silent yell.

Something pulled at the navel and everything went dark.

She found herself in the trophy room with the plate in her hand. She stared up in horror at Tom Riddle, large as life, and five times more handsome. He was smiling now.

"I didn't know the plate was a Portkey or that it was time-keyed," Tom Riddle said. "But welcome to my world, Jane. But that's not your name, is it? Because you know better than to give me your real name."

Hermione was speechless. "I need to... I need to get back... you... I... you can't..."

"Sometimes an Intangible Legilimens is useful, Hermione." Tom reached over and stroked her hair. "I think we'll have plenty of long talks, and you'll like me, Hermione. I have great dreams, and you know all about them. You've fought against me, but you don't have to fight against me now. I am no threat to you."

"But," she started. Her voice was caught as she saw his utterly innocent face that she knew was not innocent, even now. But he was not really Voldemort, and there was a bit of human decency there still. She could see it. But... he was going to become Voldemort. She had to get back now. If only he would stop looking at her like that, like she was one of the best things that could happen to him just because she knew about the Intangibles.

And he knew about the Intangibles. And understood them. And used them.

Yes, Hermione," he said softly, making her tremble, and not entirely in fear, "we'll have a wonderful time together."

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**Author notes:** If you ask me to make that a novel-length, I'll not be responsible for my actions. I wanted it to be short and unresolved. I have too many novel-lengths in my head to have another one. It's fine short. :)

If anyone has any short story ideas, I'm up to it.

Merry Christmas!

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	4. To Whom It May Concern

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**Title:** The Light and Darkness Anthology (04)  
**Author name:** Lunalelle  
**Author email:**  
**Category:** General  
**Sub Category:** Romance  
**Keywords:** Hermione Voldemort biography biographer  
**Rating:** PG  
**Spoilers:** SS/PS, CoS, PoA, GoF, FB, QTTA, OoTP  
**Summary:** The Dark Lord has hired a biographer: Hermione Granger. She has her say in the introduction.  
**DISCLAIMER:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.  
**Author notes:** This is in response to **Zaralya**'s request at my livejournal. It may not be what she was expecting, but I think I did all right.

**To who****m**** it may concern,**

The Introduction to The Life of Lord Voldemort is meant only as a place where my own voice, unfettered by facts, will be heard. The Dark Lord has permitted me these few paltry pages for myself in exchange for what he desires, which I am more than delighted to give him. He has been anxious for the first publication of his biography and has plied me for a look at the words in my written hand. For him, _this_ will be the perfect edition, not the published work, although he will be proud of the published work as well. I offered to make him another work with my written hand, complete with illustrations, if he lets me introduce myself properly.

Not many people of this world would have done this for him. By all rights, I should never have answered his polite request to the insurgents of Hogwarts, among the ruins that once was our beloved school. It has long since been rebuilt--with a renewed purpose--but the rebellion has been silenced, conditioned, and submersed in the new society. I suppose many of us are wondering why we were against him in the first place by this time. It is not the horror, the bloodbath, the anarchy that we imagined. While there was chaos for a few years, society has accustomed itself to the Dark Lord's transformations of the global community. The result is not distasteful. Although it is not the best environment for those not elite before the war started, e.g. the Muggleborns and the half-bloods, there is a still a place for us. Our magic is still permitted. We still learn. We have access to knowledge and materials. It is not much different than before. From Reign of Terror to a Reign Much Like the Ministry. There are problems and biases, but no stronger than the problems and biases of the previous order.

The names of Albus Dumbledore and Harry Potter have turned from people to monuments. Not many retain their memories, not when adjusting to the present is of primary concern. The Dark Lord wisely raised them to their proper status after the new society was established. I think he understood their power, despite his original hatred, and he respected it after their honorable deaths. Their deaths are recorded dutifully in the biography, as objective as I can mention them, one of my best friends and the esteemed Headmaster of Hogwarts and Head of the Order. So many losses, just to come in a full circle. I will always remember them as they were, men only, but men that never deserved to die.

I still bring flowers to the graves of the dead. Albus Dumbledore and Harry Potter, of course, but their graves and monuments are always strewn with flowers, letters, keepsakes of a different era. I remember those who others do not, those who had a hand in the other side, those who ought to be remembered but drift in the ether of the forgotten or the unseen. Ronald Weasley, Molly Weasley, Arthur Weasley, Charlie Weasley, Nymphadora Tonks, Rubeus Hagrid, Minerva McGonagall, Severus Snape, Kingsley Shacklebolt... So many lives, some that I cannot even list here... so many. Maybe one day I will write a tribute to them, just as I have written a tribute to the man who won the war.

A great deal of hatred swells within me when I think of our lord. I do not deny it, and he knows it well enough. And yet now, after learning who he was, searching for him within the illusion of the image he presents, finding a man who is unlike any other man, I find that I can love him despite the hatred, just as he can love me despite his hatred.

I am comfortable with my opinions here in the introduction. I will not be put in containment. I will not be killed for insulting the Dark Lord. He knew who he hired when he brought me into his audience chamber. If you read these words, do not look over your shoulder. You will not be condemned for the words of a former Order member. He has given me license to write what I please within the confines of truthfulness.

I wrote this biography amidst seething emotions, the creation of a new world, a brave new world, and like a good biographer, I had to maintain objectivity. And like a good biographer, I failed miserably. With the man still alive, it is impossible to look at him with a straight eye of indifference. Although I stifled my true voice within the bounds of this text, I did not extract it completely. Not even a Penseive is devoid of feeling, of subjectivity.

There has been consternation in the process of writing this biography. I, myself, am not very liked among witches and wizards who cling to the old community. In my defense, I am still very much a member of the Order. I have not betrayed them when there was nothing left to betray. I do not work _for_ the Dark Lord. I work with him, parallel to him. I am employed by him and yet not beneath him. I am his lover, but not his lady. If all I am given after what I say and do here in my work is his love, I would say this is a worthy cause. I would never insult Harry's memory, but I will not insult the Dark Lord's by matter of principle. Everything written in this biography _happened_. While opinions of those who I interviewed, those whose letters and diary entries I copied, the Dark Lord, and myself suffuse the story, it is _true_, true to many people, if not exact and objective.

There will be more editions of this biography. After all, the Dark Lord is still living and still has much of his life to live. There will be other biographers with other biographies. Perhaps even an autobiography if I can teach him to write like an author rather than an analyst. But this is my work, and I remained true to it on every page. I do not apologize for what I have done. I stand proud beside the Dark Lord, knowing that I betrayed no one. I did not bow in submission, nor beg, nor cry or keen before him. I am simply his biographer, and that was what I was meant to be.

Sincerely yours,

Hermione Jane Granger

Official Biographer of the Morsmordre Order

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**Author notes:** While I think this would have been an intriguing longer fic, I'm just not up to it. Maybe someone else would like to take the idea of Dark Lord biographer!Hermione for their own fic. I hope people enjoyed this.

Maybe in the future I'll do a satire off of Einhard's _The Life of Charlemagne_ or something.

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	5. Multiplicity

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**Title:** The Light and Darkness Anthology (05)  
**Author name:** Lunalelle  
**Author email:** **Category:** Drama  
**Sub Category:** Romance  
**Keywords:** Hermione Riddle Voldemort Harry basilisk  
**Rating:** R  
**Spoilers:** SS/PS, CoS, PoA, GoF, FB, QTTA, OoTP  
**Summary:** Hermione needs basilisk tooth and venom for a Potions project. And where do we know that there is a basilisk just waiting for the taking?  
**DISCLAIMER:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.   
**Author notes:** This was written as my February short story and as a gift for **Inell**'s birthday. :throws streamers:

**Multiplicity**

"Remind me why we're doing this again," Harry said, stepping cautiously into the girls' bathroom.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Would you stop that, I've told you five times already. You're just griping because you're the interpreter."

"No," Harry said, "I'm griping because the last time I went down there, I nearly died and now there's a great, rotting basilisk corpse that, incidentally, we're going to have to get close to."

"And how do _you_ propose we go about removing one of its teeth?" Hermione said loftily, checking to see that there was no one in the stalls and that Moaning Myrtle had not heard them.

"Summoning Charm?"

Hermione huffed at his depressing ignorance. "No wonder Professor Snape and Professor Dumbledore wanted both of us to go. If you just rip out the tooth... The Painstaking Poison is _delicate_, Harry. You can't just let splinters of the tooth fall into the basilisk venom, and you can't let a single drop of the venom fall on the ground. It's not a removal, it's an extraction. Would you like Mr. Malfoy or Bellatrix Lestrange to _recover_ because the basilisk venom was adulterated?"

"Hermione, I only needed a 'no,' not an entire academic article."

"Harry," Hermione said, "just open the Chamber."

He led her to the sink where the snake was carved on the faucet. "It may take me a minute."

Hermione watched him in restrained fascination as he moved his head from side to side, letting the play of light make the snake look almost like it was real.

"Open up," he said. He looked at Hermione.

"English."

He cursed. "I haven't done this in so long. It's not as if I have a snake or anything."

"Relax, Harry. I'm not going to disembowel you because you didn't speak Parseltongue. Take your time," she reassured him.

He sighed and applied himself back to the task at hand. It took five more tries before his tongue transformed smoothly from English to Parseltongue. Hermione shook her head as he looked at her for confirmation. She could not believe that he could not tell when he was speaking it. But the sink began to drop into the ground, revealing the pipe behind it. Hermione wrinkled her nose.

"I'm glad I was Petrified the first time," she said. "It's so filthy."

Harry grinned. "Ron and I were a mess. And just imagine Lockhart going down there. Ladies first."

Hermione stuck her tongue out at him before she gingerly slipped into the pipe. She didn't fancy losing or breaking her wand on the way down, so she did not cast _Lumos_, but she wished she could see farther than her feet.

"It's all right," Harry said. "I'm right behind you. And I'll be as dirty as you when I get down there, too."

"I feel so much better," she grumbled before pushing herself down.

It seemed to go on forever. She could feel the back of her robes dampening with the sliminess of the pipe walls. She could hear Harry behind her and hoped that he did not come out on top of her. The end of the pipe was so abrupt that she caught her feet on the ground and tumbled head over heels, bruising her forehead, elbow, hip and knees before colliding with the wall, fortunately not on her head or face. Harry, who had a better idea what to expect, still slid on the ground, covered in slime like she was, but he did so much more gracefully than she did. When he collected himself from the ground, he walked over to help Hermione to her feet. She winced as she felt every place where she had hurt herself.

"Don't you say one word, Harry Potter!"

He tried vainly not to grin.

"And wipe that grin off your face," Hermione said, but she could not help but smile, too. "I ache all over."

"We can always go back and get Snape to do it," Harry suggested. "He's the one who wanted you to get it anyway."

"Harry, it's N.E.W.T. level Potions, it's not supposed to be easy."

"But all I had to do was go into the Forbidden Forest," Harry said. "You have to come down to the Chamber of Secrets - Slytherin's Chamber of Secrets, the Chamber of Secrets made to keep a monster that would rid Hogwarts of all Muggle-borns. You could have chosen a potion with more hospitable ingredients."

"But it was hardest potion on the list, and I wanted..."

"A challenge," Harry said. "I know. Let's go. The sooner we get your basilisk fang, the sooner we can leave. I don't really want to stay too long. And it smells like a toilet bowl down here."

Hermione sighed. "Thank you for being so mature about this," she said sarcastically. "But I agree." She took out her wand.

"_Lumos_," she said. Harry followed suit. Together they walked into the dark tunnel.

"There'll be some bones on the ground, a snake skin, and a cave-in later on. I'm not sure whether the hole Ron made is still open."

"And Tom Riddle came down here to set the basilisk on people?" Hermione said. "Good, I'm glad he had to get dirty if he was going to be evil. Oh yuck, there's the first skeleton."

Their shoes crunched over the bones of rats. At first, they tried to avoid them, but eventually, they just gave up and walked straight without bothering to look down.

"Remind me to take some of that when we go back up," Hermione told Harry, looking at the folds of parchment-like skin that lay haphazardly along the tunnel.

"What for?"

"For Professor Snape. There are about thirty five potent potions that use basilisk skin. And he wouldn't even have to pay for it," Hermione answered.

"Or you could charge him."

"Harry."

Harry tripped on a spread of skin, and Hermione grabbed his shoulder to steady him. "Thanks. At least you could bribe him."

Hermione giggled. "To do what? Raise my grade?"

Harry smiled sheepishly. "Well... you could bribe him to take points from Malfoy. Or do a happy little dance in the Great Hall."

"Harry, don't do that again. Bad visuals."

They stopped in front of a great pile of rocks. Both of them held their wands up to see the cave in more clearly.

"I remember it was... somewhere over here..." Harry said, climbing up on some of the bigger rocks.

"Careful," Hermione snapped, concerned. "If one rock goes, the whole thing will go."

"Well, we'll have to climb up it anyway," Harry called. "The opening _is_ up here." He held his wand to the hole and looked down at Hermione. "I'll go first and help you down. You're bruised enough already without falling down the rocks."

"My hero," Hermione muttered, waiting until he gave her the okay. Harry's hands were there at the edge of the opening and he guided her down. She admitted to herself that it was better to have someone help her, even if it niggled at her independence. She might have been all black and blue if he had not caught her after catching her foot in a crevice between the rocks. Harry took the brunt of the fall, and although her foot twisted painfully, it did not seem to be too badly hurt - not sprained or broken.

"Remind me to kill you when we get back to the surface," Harry said through gritted teeth - more than a few rocks were pressed into sensitive parts. "Don't wiggle too much, otherwise my future wife will dig up your grave and kill you again."

"Well, we're not going anywhere unless I move," Hermione said, shifting.

"Hermione!" Harry gasped. "Don't move!" He clenched his eyes shut as a particularly sharp point rubbed between his legs.

"Then what..."

"Let me move _you_," he said. He pressed his feet against a few rocks and pushed slightly, relieving the pressure of the rocks under him. He breathed out before pushing Hermione up so that he could slide out from under her.

"Harry, my foot is stuck, and this angle isn't helping." She tried to get to her knees. "Damn it. After you kill me, I'm going to haunt Professor Snape until he comes down here himself and makes a fool out of himself."

"You _did_ choose the potion, Hermione."

"Shut up."

By turning her foot and with Harry gently pulling it up by the heel, she eased her way out of the crevice.

"Are you all right?" he asked, as she put her weight on it and winced.

"Yeah, it's fine," she said. "Just hurts. I can walk on it. Are you all right?"

"I was this far from being a eunuch, but yeah."

"Ready to go on?"

Harry picked up their wands from where they had thrown them on the ground. "If we don't get that basilisk tooth and keep the venom in it, I will not be happy."

"I'll take that as a yes. All right." Hermione dusted herself off as best as she could before limping ahead.

"There'll be a wall next, with snakes on it. The wall will open up into the chamber. Then we can put our lights out," Harry explained. "The chamber has its own lighting."

They rounded a bend.

"I'll take it that's the wall," Hermione said.

Harry breathed in. "And I have to bring Parseltongue back."

"They look... alive," Hermione said, eyes roaming over the snakes.

"Makes it easier," Harry said, sticking his wand in his pocket.

"No, Harry, they _really_ look alive," Hermione said, her voice cracking. "They're moving."

Harry looked up. And swallowed. "Those aren't carvings."

"Harry, open the wall," she whispered.

Looking at the snakes twined about exposed pipes on the ceiling, Harry hissed again, "_Open up_."

As the wall split open, Harry and Hermione rushed through the opening.

"They looked too big to be poisonous," Harry said.

"Doesn't mean that they aren't. The largest king cobra is around eighteen feet," Hermione said, still looking up and behind her, making sure that none of the snakes were following. "But you're right - they looked more like constrictors. Still, it was creepy. Snakes under Hogwarts? Where did they come from? Did you see any last time you were here?"

"Aside from the big, deadly, magical one I killed?"

"Harry."

"No," Harry replied. "But maybe Slytherin or Voldemort bred them and they've just been nesting since then. There's no lack of rodent life."

"I hope they didn't breed any poisonous ones," Hermione said, shivering. "Excluding the obvious, of course."

They both whispered "_Nox_" and looked around. There in front of them farther down the chamber, lay the basilisk.

"Wow, Harry, you killed _that_?" Hermione said.

"It looked more hostile when it still had most of its flesh, and Fawkes put out its eyes, but... yeah."

They approached the slimy, decaying body slowly, as though any moment it would come back to life and snap them in two. They looked at it for a moment.

Finally, Hermione said, "Slytherin had serious sexual issues - inferiority, possibly an obsession with..."

"Hermione, spare me the secret life of Salazar Slytherin and take out the tooth already."

"But really, are all these snakes really necessary...?"

"The man was one of the rare Parselmouths of all time," Harry said. "Maybe he just wanted company when he came down here."

"Oh, wonderful. Now we have a _lonely_, dirty old man. That _really_ sheds light on what he needed all these snakes for..."

"Let's not mention bestiality, Hermione, I'm getting sick just smelling the thing. I don't need any more help." Harry put his fingers under his nose, but the action did not work as well as he would have liked. "Besides, when did you start becoming so interested in Slytherin sex lives?"

Hermione grinned. "You're just still not used to me talking about sex, are you?"

Harry glared at her. "I try not to listen to you and Ron when you start talking about the birds and bees, thank you. Though I wonder how long Ron can maintain a blush when you start raking him over the coals for one of his slip ups about girls."

"I'm just glad we're not talking about each other anymore," Hermione said, edging toward the basilisk and trying to breathe through her mouth.

"And believe me, so does the rest of Gryffindor Tower," Harry added. "We got a bit too much information out of your fights."

"As long as you didn't sell tickets and popcorn, I'm all right with that," Hermione said distractedly. The stench of the snake faded away as her attention honed in on the remaining fang.

"Neh, we just made bets on who would call it off," Harry said quietly, knowing that she would not hear him when she was like this. "I made five Galleons."

"Uh-huh," she murmured, prodding gently at the receded gum at the edge of the tooth.

"Hermione?"

"Mm."

"How long is this going to take?"

Hermione turned around and gave him a look. "If you're already bored, go play with the nice snakes. Just don't wander too far or get your socks dirty."

Harry blushed at her intentional mothering, but he took her advice and started walking down beside the basilisk. The smell did not seem so strong, as though he was getting used to it. When he looked more closely at the snake carvings around the chamber, he noticed more of the living snakes, but he did not want to alarm Hermione any more than she needed to be. And when she applied herself to difficult tasks like this, it was almost impossible to drag her out of the trance she set herself in unless he wanted his face scratched. Some of the snakes eyed him, but they did not seem to be angry or even curious. Just watchful.

Harry looked up at the statue of Slytherin, the mouth gaping open and the skin wrinkled, the stone beard trailing down to the floor. The empty holes of the eyes made him shiver, so he kept walking toward the great stone shoes. He could hear the echoes of Hermione mumbling to herself as she slowly extracted the tooth with magic without polluting the poison that Hermione coaxed into the tooth. She kept the extracted tooth in her hand as the venom dripped little by little into the makeshift cup, as though she was taking the blood of a sacrifice. When the hollow of the tooth was filled, Hermione chanced a breath and pulled the tooth away, letting the rest of the venom continue dripping on the floor. Sidestepping the growing puddle, she put a stasis charm on the tooth and its contents so that she could put them in her pocket and they would not break, leak, or spill.

When she looked up from her completed work, she found that Harry was gone.

"Harry?" she called, a worm of fear curling in her throat. "Harry?"

"Here," he called back, waving his arm from the right corner of the chamber.

"What...?"

"There are more rooms here," he said, beckoning her over.

"What?"

"Just come here."

_Great_, Hermione thought, _Harry gets curious. Harry's curiosity nearly gets us killed. He's sheepish and gives me that cute I'm-an-innocent-little-puppy look, and I forgive him, and the whole cycle continues. Either that, or they'll never find our remains._

"You do remember that this is _Slytherin's_ Chamber of Secrets, don't you?" Hermione said, making her way over to him. "And Voldemort's after that?"

"Yeah. Just look."

"And that could mean that there could be more than poisonous snakes. There could be all kinds of rigged Dark magics and... oh." Hermione's mouth stopped working as she looked down the corridor. Unlike the Chamber itself, the large, self-lit room was furnished - not luxuriously or extravagantly, but there was a carpet on the floor, only a little bit water stained and riddled with rodent gnawing at the entrance. But what caught Hermione's eye and her utter devotion were the shelves of books that extended all the way around the room. Periodically, a door interrupted the flow of books, but Hermione did not notice them as much as the prospect of all these books. Harry smirked at the glow in her eyes and the deepening red of her cheeks - excitement personified, she looked positively radiant.

"Maybe Slytherin wasn't such a bad guy after all," Harry said, all guileless.

"Ha ha," Hermione breathed. "There are more books here than in the library. Are they all Dark Arts books? Are there that many Dark Arts books in the world? Or..." She stepped into the room. "I wonder if he has the _Codex of Orion_. Or the _Francis Cistus Anthology of Polytransformation_. They've been lost for centuries. Maybe he has the diaries of Lucretius."

Harry followed her in. "I see we've forgotten all about the rigged Dark magics," Harry pointed out.

Hermione ignored him as she looked at the spines of the books along the wall. "I could spend years in here. I wonder if we could rig some way down here without having to go through that pipe and all that fuss..."

Once again, Hermione was lost in her little world, and Harry felt it best to leave her alone, although he looked back at her every now and then to make sure she had not opened a book that made her break out in warts or not let her stop reading, like Ron had said back in second year.

Hermione knew better than to randomly open a book in Slytherin's library without subjecting it to hundreds of enchantment tests, but she was still mesmerized by the sheer number of books there were. Some of them were books she had never heard of.

As she made her way along the row, she reached one of the breaks where there was a door. Unlike most of the others around the room, this door was ajar. She peeked in carefully. A sitting room combined with a laboratory. Looking back to make sure that Harry was still there, she opened the door a little farther and stepped in.

The door closed behind her with the lightest of clicks. Hermione whirled around to face the closed door, reached for the door knob...

"Hello, Hermione Granger."

Hermione froze.

"I know you," the voice said. "And I think you know me."

She turned around slowly to see a nice-looking boy with dark hair, dark eyes, and a Head Boy badge pinned to his Hogwarts robes.

"Harry!" she screamed.

"No, that's the wrong answer," the boy said with a smirk, "but you're close."

"Harry!" she screamed again.

"He can't hear you," the boy said, sitting down casually in one of the armchairs. "Or he can, but you scream lasts less than a second to his ears. Time moves differently in these rooms. Now, let's try again: Who am I?"

Hermione backed against the wall. "Tom Riddle," she said quickly in between her quick gasps of breath.

"Again, close, Hermione. Closer." He clicked his tongue. "From all the talk about you, I would have thought you'd be quicker. Try again."

Hermione's legs did not want to hold her up, and she fought not to slide to the ground. "Voldemort."

His mouth spread into a lazy smile. "There's a good girl." He crossed his legs and looked at her expectantly.

"I-I-I-I don't u-understand. You-you're Tom. You-you're just a memory. How can you be V?"

"And there, Hermione, is where you are wrong," he said. "I am not a memory. Touch me, and I am corporeal. Go on." He held out his hand, but Hermione did not move.

"Where is that vaunted Gryffindor courage?" he chided. "Lucius and Antonin tell me that you're quite the little spitfire when you're mad enough. But I rather like you like this. Go ahead and fall to the ground, Hermione. Legs are spindly things. Careful of your basilisk fang, though."

Hermione's legs gave way.

"There we go. That is much more comfortable, isn't it?"

"I don't..."

"Understand? Yes, we've been there already." The boy-Voldemort leaned his head back against the chair and took out his wand, playing with it between his fingers. "I would much rather watch the clever, formidable Miss Granger quiver, but I suppose questions must be answered eventually."

Hermione watched as his lungs expanded and his eyes closed, savoring the possession of the answers he was going to give.

"Just as the Chamber of Secrets is not one chamber, but many, do you think that the Tom Riddle that the young Miss Weasley got lost in was the only Tom Riddle I made? Or the best? That Tom Riddle was merely a memory, as were several other Riddles that you will find about the Chamber and within some of my Death Eaters' houses, as well as in some Muggle museums and even among Hogwarts relics. Cry if you want to, little Hermione. I can smell your tears from here."

Hermione blinked, caught the tears with the sleeve of her robes.

"That is impolite. Don't you have a handkerchief?" The boy-Voldemort pulled one out of his pocket and Levitated it to her. Hermione flinched away as it dropped into her lap. "It won't hurt you."

She still did not touch it.

Boy-Voldemort shrugged. "Have it your way. As I was saying, some Tom Riddles were memories. Others were golems. Others were clones. You'll find them all over the chamber. Ghosts, voices, corporeal forms. The best, though, the best were the ones I finished near the end of my seventh year." He opened his eyes and looked at Hermione. "This one. And two others. Consciousnesses. Corporeal bodies with my bits of my consciousness. I'll bet that even now your fear is fading and being replaced by curiosity."

Hermione caught herself staring at him in awe, hungry for his explanation and quickly looked down at her hands.

"Oh, there is no need to hide your curiosity. I remember when I first came down to the chamber. I was frightened, like the little school boy that I was. When I saw the basilisk, I thought I was dead. But its eyes did not kill me, and I could look into them without concern. I found the library, and like you, I was transfixed by the vastness of the library. I understand your fascination. I watched your fascination. I tasted your fascination. And Harry Potter is regretting your fascination because he, too, has wondered into one of the rooms and is being held down by golems as I speak. One of my consciousnesses is on its way." Boy-Voldemort stood.

"The answer to your question is in one of the many books in the library. You would have to search for it yourself. You might even find the way to destroy this consciousness and the others, but I doubt you could do so before my real body found you."

"What?" Hermione said slowly, realization surfacing murkily past the terror and contemplation.

"Well, I know that I have Potter in my grasp, and I have you at my disposal. There are ways to reach the chamber from the outside, not just down the pipes of Hogwarts. Parts of the chamber extend beyond the borders of the Hogwarts Apparition wards. I will be here momentarily." He looked down at her. "I rather fancied you would be taller. Squarish. But you're nothing more than a sprite, are you?"

As he approached her in his slow, cool way, Hermione scrambled to her feet, not wanting him too close. No, not that close. Standing, she had a better idea how tall he was in comparison, and she did not like the way he loomed over her, the intensity of his countenance making her feel as though she was been laid open, stripped of her clothes, her skin, her mind bared to his. She wanted to wrap her arms around herself, shield herself from his gaze.

She tried to grab her wand, but with a simple Disarming Spell, he held both his wand and her wand in his hand.

"How did you... Where did you get the wand?" she asked, glancing behind her to make sure she was not walking straight into a corner.

"I have many wands. Not all of them perfectly compatible, but usable." He stopped stalking her. "I still cannot believe that _you_ are Hermione Granger. You're just an ordinary girl. Lucius made you out to be a hideous demon who cheats on tests and sings siren songs to professors, and Antonin said you were just a child, if fair with a wand. I had almost hoped that, after reading the _Prophet_, Antonin was wrong, but I see now that he isn't. How disillusioning."

Her eyes darted to the door. Maybe she could run for it.

"I wouldn't if I were you. Golems and memories have swarmed the library. Or at least they will if you open the door. It hasn't happened yet. And it won't for the next hundred years if you stay in here. The genius of Slytherin permits a great deal of time. And anyway, I'll let you out when I'm finished with you so that my real body can have you. I must admit, I'm curious, you _are _Hermione Granger, are you not?"

He attacked swiftly before she knew what was happening. His hands clutched at her shoulders, pressing into the bruises from her tumble out of the pipe. He pressed her against the wall and bent his head down so that they were eye to eye. She could feel his breath on her lips. She gave a little cry at the suddenness of the violent act, but she was caught by the darkness of his eyes, probing, piercing, reaching into her mind, plundering, pillaging. He smiled.

"Hello, again, Hermione."

His body was pressed against hers, and she knew that he was very corporeal, and very human as well. His heat burned through his robes and her robes until her skin broke into a thin sweat.

"It is really a pity that you're Muggleborn," he said softly. "I think it would be interesting to let you lose among my Death Eaters, in my house, to know you when other people cannot see you, to know you and see you in ways that Potter never even thought of, or that Weasley boy that you spend so much time with. To see you when you are alone - when you lose yourself to a book or lie sleeping in your bed, or when you cry in a cubicle of the girls' toilet because no one respects you, no one likes you, when you find yourself crying in the showers for no reason. Would you like me to tell you the reason?"

She tried to look away, tried to push him off of her, but he only pressed himself closer, only tangled his fingers tight in her hair so that her head could not move.

"Because the people around you are fools, ignorant fools, and they never seem to compare. Like everyone else, you feel like you want to be a part of them, you want to be accepted, but you don't want to stoop to their level to do it. You're better than them, and you know it, but you don't understand why. You ignore it when you can, distract yourself with your friends and your books and your professors and your classes, but sometimes, when you have nothing to do, nothing in your mind, it surfaces. It closes in on you like a predator and you don't know what to do with yourself but cry and push it away again."

He moved his mouth closer to her ear, his cheek pressing against hers. "And oh how you shake when you look in the mirror and see the person that you are pretending to be. How you hate it that you have to be among commoners, mere mortals who let you do the work for them, who sit there dully in class and watch you present your acumen, only to be shunted aside and teased. All in good fun, eh, Hermione? But let's go have real fun, silly fun, fun that isn't fun at all, but tedious, ephemeral gratification that leaves a hollow place that once again needs to be filled by something fulfilling. It really is a pity that you're Muggleborn. Because of your blood, you have to be used and discarded like rubbish when you could be sitting at my side, reveling in the glory, in the challenges that you face. You could be sneering at Lucius when he once sneered at you. But no, this cannot be allowed. You are very annoyingly a sport, which means that you must be enjoyed now. Amaze me, Hermione, and I might let you live, still a servant but living."

Disentangling his hands from her hair, he pulled her robes from her shoulders.

"Tell me how you would like to die. And be very careful, very thorough. A wrong answer will only make me despise you and feel no shame in throwing you to my Death Eaters when I open the door and my real body takes you and Harry Potter with me."

She gasped as he curled his fingers around the bottom of her sweater and pulled it over her head.

"I don't hear you, Hermione."

He undid her tie and began on her blouse buttons.

"What...?"

"Death, Hermione. Tell me how you want to die. Do you want to die slowly?" He bent over and licked her neck. "Or quickly?" Her blouse was thrown on the floor, followed by her bra. "Tell me," he said, nipping at the skin beneath her ear, paralyzing her with fear and... there was something there beneath the fear. No, within it. Something that blossomed with movements of his mouth, making her arch her neck to him.

"Tell me," he murmured, "and I may grant your wish. You have a golden opportunity." He bent to his knees, one arm holding her against the wall, and the other pulling off her shoes, her stockings, reaching up for her skirt.

"What are you doing?" she gasped as he pressed a kiss to her inner thigh. He was moving so quickly, so quickly that she was not completely registering what was happening. Her fear made it a dream.

"Taking off your clothes. How do you want to die?" His hands slid up her legs, taking off the last piece of clothing as he licked her stomach with the tip of his tongue.

"No... not..." Again, her legs did not want to hold her and her twisted foot was hurt. "Not... not like this."

"Not like this?" he asked, smiling against her skin. "Are you sure? It would be a good way to die."

"Not... no... what are you doing?" she repeated.

"You're supposed to be intelligent, Hermione," he murmured, his fingernails scraping gently against her inner thighs. "Intelligence requires a certain degree of observation and interpretation, even under duress. Guess."

"Why are you... oh... my god... why are you doing this, then?"

He hummed into her body before answering. "Amazing how sensitive your fear can make you, isn't it? If you really want to know, I'm doing this because I want to. Because it will humiliate you. Because I want to here you say how you want to die." His tongue darted out again.

She gasped. "In... in... in my bed..."

"That... can... be... arranged," he said between strokes of his tongue.

"No... not now..."

"When, Hermione, tonight?"

"In my... god... in my bed... old... when I'm o-old, one h-hundred and fifty th-three years old... don't... don't..."

"Don't what?" he murmured.

"Don't stop." His hands were on the back of her thighs, holding her steady, and her head was thrown back against the wall. "Don't stop."

He stopped. "Continue, please," he said smoothly.

Hermione keened in frustration, but she obeyed. "In m-my bed when I-I'm one hundred and fifty three years old, with children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren. In a time of peace. God." His mouth was back again, and she pressed her arm against her teeth as she fell apart. He caught her as she slid to the ground. She breathed heavily against his shoulder, eyes tight shut, not wanting to admit what she had just done, not wanting to see it or believe it.

He pointed his wand at the door and opened it with a word. A figure stood in the doorway, and boy-Voldemort pulled away from Hermione. When she opened her eyes, he waved mockingly.

"Play your cards right, and you might get your wish," said Voldemort. Not the boy. There, cloaked in darkness, beckoned the Dark Lord. Boy-Voldemort tossed the real Voldemort Hermione's wand, and Hermione was inexplicably pulled to the figure. "Potter is dead. And you can either die here or come with me. The new order has begun, and even the Mudbloods, especially a Mudblood like you, will have their place. What is your choice, Hermione?"

She fell forward, toward him, all sensations flooding her mind and body and darkening, dimming. The real form of Voldemort caught her.

"Good choice."

He called to a golem Tom Riddle, who took Hermione in his arms and followed Voldemort out of the chamber to the point at which Voldemort took Hermione and Disapparated. Indeed, the new order had begun, beginning with her. He would have her at his side. He saw it when she walked into the Dark library, the _Slytherin _library. All it would take was time.

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**Author notes:** As you can see, I brought the Secret Slytherin Library (tm) in because I do love it so.

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	6. Do you trust me?

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**Title:** The Light and Darkness Anthology (06)  
**Author name:** Lunalelle  
**Author email:** General  
**Keywords:** Hermione Granger Tom Riddle  
**Rating:** G  
**Spoilers:** SS/PS, CoS, PoA, GoF, FB, QTTA, OoTP  
**Summary:** Tom Riddle has been watching Hermione...  
**DISCLAIMER:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.  
**Author notes:** Short, little improv-ed character sketch. The first line is from the Beginning Exchange, contributed by **false cleric**.

**"Do you trust me?"**

**Do I trust you? No, but I'm merely giving you a chance to prove me wrong."** Hermione cocked her hip and pursed her lips at him with all the confidence of a full grown, formidable woman.

Tom looked at her, a slip of a witch with bushy hair and drooping stockings. He did not know what to say. For someone new at Hogwarts, she certainly knew what she was doing - or she had no idea. For instance, she had known to avoid Slytherin eye contact since day one. She had instinctively known which staircase moved when and what doors worked where. One of her inexcusable mistakes was her uncanny knowledge of where each of the classes were.

She had no friends. He knew why - he had seen girls like her before. Without someone to attach herself to, she blurted out whatever came into her head. What redeemed her a little in his eyes was her ability to blurt out something that was not about Quidditch, boys, other girls, her appearance. No, the first thing he heard her blurt out was an accurate, precise list of potions ingredients for the Calming Draught while in front of the Great Hall about to be Sorted. He thought she would be a Ravenclaw - who else would recite potions ingredients to cope with performance pressure- but being in Gryffindor did not help her when it came to ingratiating herself to him.

And then, she actually had the nerve to raise her hand in Charms when he had raised his hand. This is how he knew she had no friends - a friend would have warned her. When Tom raised his hand, you sat down and shut up - you did not want to get in the way of Tom's ambition for Head Boy. It was right up there with not getting caught after hours by Pringle. It simply was not done. And yet the annoying witch raised her hand, and the bloody teacher called on her. And she answered the question like she blurted out everything else. A swotty little girl who needed to constantly assert her knowledge, waving her arm like it was a flag, overly eager... pathetic.

Until she began to cast her spells, her irritatingly piercing voice lulled into an almost husky purr, tasting every syllable of magic that passed through her lips, worshipping them. His ears caught the music through the inept fumblings of the other students, and his gaze rested on the glow of her countenance as it beheld her handiwork. 

He wondered to what other uses that music could be applied.

An annoying swot, but one that had a foundation. A know-it-all, but not one who lorded herself over the others. Eager, but controlled in her wand-waving. He watched her as she cast spell after spell - sometimes in the darkness of dusk on a blanket with a few other Gryffindors who invited her to an evening picnic out of politeness. He had never known a more beautiful sight than the curve of her neck as she bent over a book, her hair shielding her face from his gaze so that her intensity was felt rather than seen. When the skies were pouring their wrath, he thought of that bare patch of neck and wondered what she would do if he dropped a kiss upon it, then vanished.

When she interacted with any person, from student to teacher, her hoity-toitiness grated on his nerves, but he was rewarded when she spoke instead to the magic within. He wanted her to speak to him like that.

But she was a Mudblood. She skirted around Slytherins like they carried the plague, like she knew the barbs that would be thrown her way. Her cringing eventually caught the attention of some of the more observant purebloods. Her novelty made her a target, even if a passing one, for many students, and it was inevitable that Patrick noticed her. Tom saw the fire and fear in her entire demeanor at the first 'Mudblood' and knew that it was true. One swish a second later from his slim wand that obeyed him so smoothly, and Patrick caught his gaze. A half smile from the older pureblood indicated he understood Tom had begun his game, however he was prepared to play it out. 

So he had followed her. Not stealthy, not as he should. Like a bumbling fool. Intentionally. The slap of his shoes on the floor alerted her to his approach, and she whipped around, her wand at the ready. He watched as the glint of recognition surfaced in her eyes.

He grinned in his charming way - oh, he had charmed so many - but she just stood there, prissy as a high-horsed Gryffindor, even after he had apologized for the older Slytherin's behavior. Even after he had told her that he was half blood and got that all the time. 

When she snorted, he fought his temper. How could she possibly know? No need to make himself a professorial focus, particularly for the Transfiguration professor on the other side of the corridor.

"Don't you trust me?" he had asked innocently.

One glance from his hair to his boots stripped him, and the utter contempt she exhibited went as far as to shock him - a girl who may be less than his standards who dared to scoff at his brilliant act. 

"Do I trust you? No, but I'm merely giving you a chance to prove me wrong," she said. "I've been waiting for you, Riddle."

"Waiting?" Tom murmured, stepping closer.

"I'm not afraid of you, but I don't trust you. I think you know why."

She couldn't know.

"I'm willing to _help_ you, Hermione," he said. "You're an intelligent witch, but Slytherins don't always value intelligence. They value power. I can provide that."

She smirked. "I'll bet you could. You haven't won me over yet."

Tom was baffled. This insecure little girl was maybe not as insecure as he thought. She certainly thought a lot of herself. Catch her off guard.

"How might I win you over then?"

"You really want to know?" She began to back away. Good girl, not presenting her back to the approaching Slytherin, the stalking Slytherin. 

"Sure."

"Give it up, Lord Voldemort, and get over yourself." In the time it took for Tom to realize that she had used the name that he only used in his thoughts, Hermione ran into the Transfiguration classroom.

He had underestimated the little witch.

That curve of her neck, her music. 

Maybe if Tom could not win her, Lord Voldemort could. He smirked, his alter ego curling contentedly in the wake of her knowledge. A little knowledge could go a long way, and he was prepared to show her that. He followed her into the Transfiguration class. Oh yes, he thought, as she determinedly looked straight ahead, he would enjoy showing her that.

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	7. Immortality

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**Title:** The Light and Darkness Anthology (07)  
**Author name:** Lunalelle  
**Author email:** Angst  
**Sub Category:** Romance  
**Keywords:** Voldemort victorious Hermione  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Spoilers:** SS/PS, CoS, PoA, GoF, FB, QTTA, OoTP  
**Summary:** A long time ahead...  
**DISCLAIMER:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.  
**Author notes:** My March Anthology fic.

_The only thing wrong with immortality is that it tends to go on forever._ Herb Caen

This is not what he expected. Not this... emptiness. Not the despair, not within him, but without. No, within him, it was lifelessness, even living. This was not how he had imagined it.

Gravestones. So many gravestones. Monuments that blended with all the others, even the expensive crypts that held his faithful blurred among the many crypts. And his name, still remembered - yes, he had his immortality in more ways than one - but it was simply an entity in itself. It was spoken now in the same tones as any ghost or monster, even though he was alive and healthy as ever. People saw him in the streets - he walked freely - and bowed in deference. He was untouchable, a venerable god. He had achieved all his goals, all the dreams that he had dreamed since he was a child.

Only to come to this. They were dead. He did not know why he was immortal and he could not pass it to another.

He would _never_ wish this hell on another, even to the long dead Harry Potter or the long dead Albus Dumbledore. Centuries had passed, and they were merely words, fainter even than he. And now, all he had were memories. Not history, but memories.

_She bent over the desk, her hair blocking her face from his narrowed eyes, but he knew that she had her special look, the look she had when she was absorbed in her work, so focused and attentive. The look she had when he let her push him onto the bed, let her rule him for those rare moments when she was the Dark Mistress rather than the simple woman he kept._

No one remembered her now. Well, that was not entirely true. She had her own infamy in historical circles, like any other woman who sat at the side of a leader, like any other woman who changed leaders. 

_"Bella," he hissed, the soft slide of his voice overpowering her indignance. "Lucius, Rodolphus, Avery. Enough. Mudblood or not..." He looked at her, eyes darkening. "She has her benefits. Tell me, Hermione, why you are willing to forfeit your friendship with the late Potter to help his enemy?"_

Hermione looked up from her place on the floor before him, kneeling, small in the audience chamber, like a little girl. "My lord, there is nothing for me out there. I could stand dying, but I cannot stand losing my mind."

"Ah yes," he said slowly, softly. "Your mind."

She had been a beautiful girl, a beautiful woman, and an even more beautiful lady, but then she began to grow older, and older, and older, while he stayed the same, a smooth body with age only indicated in the sharpness of his eyes, the knowledge behind them, the angles of his body, the movements of a man who knew his body like an instrument. She began to drift.

_She was the woman of the library. She had found her place within his empire. Her petite form belied a power that so many patrons took for granted when they tried to sneak into the private library of the Dark Lord. He taught her the hexes himself, and she had been so quick to learn._

She had been watching him, out of curiosity more than anything, he supposed. She did not engage with him - she was not allowed with her blood, even with her place, to address the Dark Lord. And the more she watched him with trained intensity - him, the man who killed her best friend - he began to watch her, walking through the stacks and peering through book shelves after the library closed. She was not permitted in the private library either, but she contented herself to the vast selection provided for her. She lived there, slept on the couches provided, ate with the other employees that went home to their families, did not speak with them, and they never spoke to her.

But he watched her deep into the early hours of the morning. He knew the rumors and stories of her experiences at Hogwarts, and not even her blood could deter him, or the refreshing curiosity that he thought he had lost.

Nearing her one hundred thirtieth year, Voldemort understood his folly. Hermione tried to help him find a way to counter the masses of transfigurations and charms he had cast upon himself, but unlike Dumbledore, her body was failing, although power still quivered. Despite all the restorative draughts and age-defying potions, death was simply the way of it. She did not cling.

_She gasped as she saw his hand reach through the bookshelves, hand her a specific book for which she had been searching the many shelves. She took it after she recovered from her initial shock, avoiding his skin._

"Thank you," she whispered. 

He stepped from behind the book shelf that separated them. "You've been watching me, Hermione."

She knew better than to deny it, and while her mouth opened, she could not respond. He saw the conflicting emotions there in her eyes. He did not even have to probe her mind. He was amused and, he dared to admit it, intrigued. He had not seen a girl's face flush like that since Bella first came to him for her Dark Mark. Rodolphus, however, kept her satisfied, and he had not preoccupied himself with anything so frivolous. But now... he had risen, over Potter, over Dumbledore, over the rubble of Grindelwald, over the Order, and he had the time now to... consider.

He took another step forward.

He had not cried at her grave. He did not know how to cry, and if he did, he suspected that he could not, any more than the sun could burn his skin, like his skin was hairless, dry.

Like he would never die.

She had died peacefully. He owed her that much. She understood the pleasure of pain, but he would not let her suffer. 

_A single white finger drifted along her jaw. _

"And what have you seen, little Hermione?"

Her breath caught, and he knew. Not just sensed, but knew. He tasted the air and hummed with the pleasure of her scent.

"I asked you a question." His fingers traced the curve of her neck. He circled her, pushing her hair away from her neck so that he could see what he was doing.

"I see you reading," she whispered. "That's all. Reading." She gasped as she felt him undoing the back of her robes. 

"No, Hermione, that is not all you have seen," he murmured in her ear. "Any other girl... any other woman would have run, or would be trembling with fear. But you aren't afraid, are you?"

She hissed, arched, as the tip of his tongue traced her spine. He pushed the robes to the side, slipping her sleeves from her arms.

"I am afraid," Hermione whispered, eyes closing as his tongue slid up her neck and along the edge of her ear.

"Of me, or of yourself?"

He could not cry, and he could not mourn. He wished he could. All he had then, instead of a shrine, was the memory of her. They remained as vivid as the days themselves, even as the present faded from his attention.

_When he struck, she knew she did not have a chance. He had as much cold talent in sex as he did in Cruciatus and Legilimency. She had already had her dreams, and as she moaned beneath him there on the floor in the stacks after hours, she knew she had found her new place, even if he presumed to dismiss her when he was finished. She knew her new place because he _could_ finish._

He had wanted to make her squirm, and he had succeeded. But he, too, lost himself in the music of skin, sighs, and sex, and although he was usually silent, he let out a slight groan as he came, as her nails slit the skin of his shoulder. She felt it vibrate through her body, and she knew.

He was hers, and she was his. 

He did leave afterward.

But he came back, and they did not say anything when he lead her to the fortress, did not say anything when she no longer had to live in the library, did not say anything when he gave her other things to do, intelligent things, did not say anything when he led her to his bed.

She had been powerless at first. She had found her power, and Voldemort had found his match. They never did talk about it, never mentioned love, and Voldemort was unsure whether it was ever love, but he knew it was beyond lust, beyond the bedchambers (or the laboratories, libraries, dungeons, or the audience chamber). Sex was secondary, even in the beginning.

_She did not whisper anymore. Yes, she had a new place. Lord Voldemort had not introduced her to his Death Eaters, nor did he integrate her. She was simply accepted because the Dark Lord accepted her, and everyone knew that what the Dark Lord wanted, he was given. They eventually accepted her in deed as well as word as her voice came back to her, as Voldemort's eyes sparkled with cold cruelty once again, as she herself sparkled like a carnelian, they found themselves under the same spell. _

She was no Dark Mistress, except in the chambers. She simply was, and that was the way of things. Voldemort liked the way of things.

She had a gravestone, plainer than those of his original followers. He knew she would not have wanted him to make a display of her. When he walked among the grave like some demon, he always took care to pass hers, although he did not deliberately approach it. The visions of her were his true monument. He would be as old as the rest of time - he _was_ a monument himself, the statue of a far-away figure that would never fade, never crack, never fall.

He did not suppose he would rule the world forever. He wanted to leave. He was restless in one place after the many centuries. Everything seemed to move so quickly, and while he learned quickly with it, it all seemed to blur, and his power no longer was a point of pride. He wanted to step down, watch the old order, or rather, the old chaos of the many nations play their little games. He was tired. He could only wait and drift in the past where he had truly lived, when life was vibrant and valued, not necessarily where she had been, but she had shone her light for her time.

Time. Time was all that was left, the forward, circular, unmeasurable continuation of time.

Voldemort waited for the world to end, hoping it would take him with it.

Read? Review!

**Author notes:** This isn't my typical fic, is it? It felt different, not least because it's from Voldemort's point of view again. I've been doing that lately, haven't I?

Cheers,  
Lunalelle

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	8. Dangerous

**Title:** Dangerous

**Pairing:** Hermione/Voldemort, Magneto/Rogue

**Challenge:** DementedAllure "Dangerous Games" challenge

**Fanfic100 Prompt:** 025. Strangers

**Rating:** R

**Word count:** 1164 words

**Summary:** It's a crime and a shame, and the angels proclaim it's a dangerous game.

**Notes:** Shut up.

---

The church would burn from the inside.

He led her into the church to bring her to the altar. It was Tuesday and mostly empty, but Voldemort made the sanctuary glow green against the Father, and although Hermione turned her head, she did not protest as he took the cup and made the Father bleed for her. Her gown stained dark purple, and he kissed her breast before telling her to sin for him. She felt herself thick and too ripe, and incense cloyed her senses – he fucked her against the altar, and her screams were like music to the high ceilings.

She ran through the halls, looking for a sister, fell before three and begged for redemption. They brought her to candles, and she lit one for each sin, one after another and another and another and another and another and another and another and another and another and another and then she lit one for her lover as the sisters' eyes grew larger and larger and white. She smiled, cradled their heads – their lives drained from the gaping wound on their back until their wimples dyed red.

Then they waited in the rectory full of bodies, waited for the congregation of the dead. They consecrated the beds with indulgence, they tainted the rooms with luxury, waited with fruit and wine and bread; it was all they could do not to burn the entire city into embers with concupiscence. They read Song of Songs. Voldemort rested his head on her stomach clothed in her blue gown that Rodolphus gave her. She was his queen, although he would never give her a title. He swelled with pride to see her kill, to see her his, to see others afraid of her kindness. He watched the candle flicker in her breath. She traced his ear and asked if she could find a dark alley.

They waited in the building across from the church, a building with fire escapes and inhabitants evicted with a little persuasion. Rogue shook her head at Magneto's dramatic entrances, but they were effective, and he seemed bigger, bigger than the world that he could hold in his fist, for wasn't the core of the earth iron? And he could hold her, gloved hands on her bare arms, for when she stood beside him, she could move freely, she could understand herself to be a mutant, and not the Gap or Limited or Banana Republic. She knew she was dangerous to him, but he was dangerous, too, and he liked that. She knew that he feared her, but she feared him, and he liked that. Rogue knew why he wanted her – she didn't mind selfishness. After all, all she wanted was to feel him. He took her against the counter with an altered spoon, and he laughed as she laughed at his choice. She touched his face, and as her power pulled his, he came in the only way he could submit. He liked that she could force him. She was honored that he would make himself vulnerable for her, even if sex was his only vulnerability.

She did not know how they could be happy when they never turned their backs to the other, but they were, and Rogue felt content as she prepared herself for Sunday mass.

They cowered from Magneto first, ladies in hats, men in coats, little girls in tights, they hid under the wooden benches. Rogue wished Mystique were there – she was not so good with this sort of thing. She was always the second wave, not Magneto's right hand. But he wanted to show her what she could be, show her that she was not these creatures shaking, looking like badly packed pudding as their faces contorted in fear. Magneto was right – she could get used to this.

Then there was one girl who did not bend herself to Magneto's will, who stared up at him with a pleasant smile and beckoned behind her. A man – what looked like a man, but wasn't one – walked from behind the choir loft to behind the pulpit. He licked his fingers gently, and Rogue saw that they were stained. And then both Magneto and Rogue saw that the members of the choir had their eyes closed.

Hermione watched the man lower himself to the floor – she knew the word for what he was, but it couldn't quite reach her mouth. That happened a lot lately, even though she felt like she knew so much more. Voldemort's wand hand twitched as the man approached them, but Hermione touched his elbow before stepping forward with her own wand bent toward his face. She looked at the girl who followed the man and thought she saw kinship, but it disappeared as a shard of metal pressed against her neck. She laughed and threw him to the floor with a word.

"Hey!" the girl cried. She was American, and the word came to her – _mutant_.

"Our objectives are the same," Hermione said. "The building will be destroyed. They will fear the Dark Lord."

"You… you are mutants?" Magneto asked, stopping his own shard of metal from attacking him with a brush of his hand. His gaze snapped from the young girl in front of him to the serpentine man stroking her hair.

"No." Voldemort looked confused, and Hermione understood how distant Muggle troubles were in his mind – he sought to conquer the wizarding world through these Muggles. He had no concern that Muggles had their own powerful factions to parallel their own Death Eaters, their own idea of the better world. They would clash eventually, yes, but for now…

"Then what are you? You look… you might… maybe you don't know…" Rogue asked. Magneto did not look at her – no disapproval – but silenced her with a caress of leather.

"I know what I am," Voldemort said, and his wand was pressed against Rogue's forehead. "And I know what you are."

"Do you?" Hermione asked. She pressed her own wand against Magneto's neck, but she could see that the man knew that there was no threat to either of them if Hermione could still speak to her lover. She was surprised at the way this man understood without one word, and she thought she might have liked to know him in another life. He was familiar. She could not help but cover her lips from a laugh.

Voldemort jerked his hand away as he felt Rogue's pull upon his magic. Rogue touched her fingers to her head, eyelids fluttering as she, too, began to understand.

Hermione removed her wand from Magneto's neck for him to go to Rogue. She took Voldemort's hand, set fire to the altar cloth. She winked at Rogue and let her voice fill the sanctuary again.

"You can do the rest. But let it burn." She hoped they met again, and she kissed Voldemort in the smoke as she heard the rafters shatter, the metal braces ripped away.


	9. Envy or Jealousy

**Title:** Envy or Jealousy  
**Characters:** Hermione, Tom Riddle (Voldemort)  
**Prompt:** 014: Green  
**Word Count: **604 words  
**Rating:** G  
**Summary:** _To be exempt from the passions with which others are tormented, is the only pleasing solitude._ Joseph Addicon  
**Author's Notes:** Finally, I get into the Tom Riddle part of Voldemort. I'm less comfortable with him, but it's good for me anyway. Sort of in the same vein as "Do you trust me?"

---

Tom Riddle was not accustomed to having to catch a person's attention, particularly if the person was of female persuasion. He knew the power of his appearance, even if the handsome features of others never affected him beyond a passive appreciation of their influence.

She had none of that power - her power was in her persistence and her persistent dismissal of him. When he spoke in class, his voice was mesmerizing. When he sat back in his chair, everyone knew that it was his turn to speak. When he played coy and innocent, there were giggles or shy smiles, fingers flexing, wanting to touch his arm, his face. This power was almost too easy and could become a nuisance if he exercised it too much.

She could not command a classroom. Her voice was grating, bossy, piercing through the peace of his expectancy and ignorant of her complacency. He heard her called swot, bitch, Mudblood filth, bint, the usual epithets. Tom was never called any of these things. People who called him anything that drew attention to his less than savory roots on his father's side forgot that he both had the magic to curse them without exertion and had friends to deal with them while he watched.

She had no friends. She had people she talked to sometimes, and he heard her talk about a few old friends, three names that she seemed uncomfortable remembering. But in her classes, at the Gryffindor table, in her dormitory, she talked to no one but her books and notes, muttering to herself as she went over them. Her common room was the library. He saw her there more often than most students could stand, and all he could see were piles of books and untamed hair as she hunched over the table with her rapidly scratching quill. He had consumed the library when he was younger and knew where most things were so that he did not have to spend so much time there. As useful as he found books, he could not stand the library where the knowledge whispering from all sides hardly told him what he needed to know. His calling was deep in the dungeons, in empty classrooms, in filthy pipes, at the edge of the Forest. Not in the library.

She never crossed the lines he did, but she worked hard and disregarded his attempts at intimidation, as though she saw right through him and he was not even there, as though he was dead. The idea that he was not there filled him with inexplicable dread, as though he had to touch himself to feel that he was solid. When he tried to draw his wand, she drew hers and stared at the twist of yew with complete confidence when others would stare at his feet in fear. When he told his followers to follow her, she found somewhere to duck away from them. One came back with boils on his arse.

She seemed to have a purpose, and that purpose seemed to be him. The deliberate way that she pushed him away only drew him nearer, more than curious. The way that she wasn't in the palm of his hand made him want her as a possession. The way that she faced him and didn't face him made him slightly envious - she was grounded, content, she had a defined purpose while his was only just coalescing with the blood of his father on his hands and the dormancy of the basilisk. He would discover what she wanted with him, and she would discover what he wanted with her.


	10. Dark, White, and Milk

**Title:** Dark, White, and Milk  
**Author:** Lunalelle  
**Rating:** G  
**Characters:** Hermione, Tom Riddle (Lord Voldemort)  
**Prompt:** 017: Brown  
**Word count:** 327 words  
**Summary:** _Tom gives Hermione a gift._  
**Notes:** Just something a little light-hearted for Valentine's Day... particularly because I'm feeling blue. Also could be in the Do you trust me? universe

---

Hermione knew what to anticipate on the morning of Valentine's Day. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Her dorm mates were already giggling over something red and sparkly, she was sure, but she hadn't been in this Hogwarts long enough to make friends beyond the classroom, much less someone who would give her roses or chocolates or whatever.

She felt oddly lacking - she knew she shouldn't. Valentine's Day wasn't about this rampant desire to flaunt your honey, and she _knew_ that. But the people flaunting their honeys looked so happy and smug, and she could only wish that there was _someone_...

"Hermione," Laurel whispered, grinning over the sausages during breakfast. "You have an admirer."

"Don't be..." Hermione thought for a moment that it was a harmless prank, but she looked up, and a school owl swooped down to deposit a dark red tin in her eggs. Laurel raised her eyebrow slyly.

"Did any of you...?" Hermione asked. She got along well enough with her year, even if there was a little strain of newness.

"No," Laurel said. "But someone's bound to be watching if you look around. What's inside? Come on, come on, don't keep the gooses waiting."

Hermione pried open the top of the tin. Squares of fudge, white, milk, dark, peanut butter, a solid variety of fudge were piled neatly inside. A white note card stark against the chocolate read simply, "For you, T."

Hermione's heart dropped to her stomach, and she quickly formed every single wand-based diagnostic on the sweets before twisting around and looking at the Slytherin table. Tom Riddle wasn't looking at her - he was talking to Avery, as usual - but Hermione could not help but think that he looked too pleased with himself.

She looked back at the chocolate, and her mind dwelled on his face for a moment with a combination of distaste, distress, and annoyance.

Then, picking up a pick of the darker fudge, she thought, _What the hell._


	11. Decimation

**Title:** Decimation  
**Fandom:** Harry Potter  
**Characters:** Hermione, Voldemort  
**Prompt:** 016: Purple  
**Word Count:** 563 words  
**Rating:** R  
**Summary:** _Voldemort surveys the field of battle._  
**Author's Notes:** Based on the symbolism of the color. For Divadeanna's birthday. Happy one, love! Not the fic, you. :)

---

They draped over each other like rotten fruit thrown from the basket, moldering in their own boiling blood, gaping wounds turning them into something no longer human. He saw vomit mingle with pus and black blood, saw the way the pure white of the Death Eater masks stained a deep brown next to limp hands.

Voldemort surveyed the street on which the battle began. Of course, now the concrete had been fulled from its foundations, and the houses were leveled, still burning and perfuming the air with the smell of smoldering hair and clothing and flesh. His bare feet pressed against glass and stone and dirt and grass, heedless of the wounds on their soles. The fabric of his robes swung around his legs and brushed like a tendril of smoke against the dead bodies. They were stained at the hem.

Dust grayed his face, but his eyes glowed red in spite of the sunlight that should have dimmed their intensity. His fingers caressed the length of his wand as he walked through the carnage, unharmed and alive with his enemy hanged on a tree like on a cross, hands bound to branches and head hanging down.

He searched for signs of movement, but other than the crackling and cracking of wood as they fell to the ground, no one stirred, not even his Death Eaters. He felt no remorse for their deaths, but he felt concern at having lost a significant number of his followers. This did not matter so much, though, for after this battle, there would be more followers.

He came to a house whose first story still seemed stable, although the second floor had caved in. Stepped over bodies, he made his way to the building and pushed open the door. Aside from the debris of the crash, there was little damage to the parlor room, and Voldemort's eyes darted from one body to another, these dead from the Killing Curse rather than from any far slower and more painful curse. There was a rustle and plaster rained down from above him. Voldemort shielded his eyes and looked up to see a girl bound to the ceiling, her wand pointing at one of the bodies and her eyes open and blinking. Her mouth had been gagged, which meant that she had cast the Killing Curse without speaking. Her nose was a swollen bulb - broken - and blood steadily dripped to a spot on the floor already the diameter of a dinner plate.

Voldemort summoned her wand to him before releasing her from the bindings. She fell to the floor, bracing herself with her hands. Her face contorted as she landed wrong, and he heard several sharp cracks. In the midst of her pain, he took in her clothing - Hogwarts standard, Gryffindor crest, Head Girl. He knew who she was within the second, and he raised his wand to kill her, but stopped as she forced herself into a crouching position, bracing herself against the spasms in her stomach. Survival - what she had in common with him. No one else had survived this battle, and although Voldemort possessed little concept of honor between enemies, he felt it best to keep her alive. But take her alive.

_Stupefy_.

As he continued his walk through the rubble, the toes of her shoes slid over the path his robes made.


	12. Fall in Five

**Title:** Fall in Five

**Rating:** PG-13

**Word count: **3084 words

**Prompt: **006-010. Days - Years

**Author's Notes:** I know I tend to repeat themes, but I hope they don't get too tiring. These are a series of five ficlets for the Fanfic100 challenge.

I. Hours

Hermione huddled tightly into the darkened, dusty corner of the library. She almost did not fit between the stone and shelves, but she brought her knees up to her chest and held her wand between her thighs so that the tip peeked through her calves. She would be ready if anyone came.

A spider crawled over her arm, and for a moment her heart froze before she could brush it off, shuddering. She was surprised at her very physical reaction to the tiny black creature - she was usually not afraid of spiders - but she blamed the rawness that vibrated strangely under her skin.

Hogwarts had fallen. The center had collapsed. Voldemort had attacked. The corridors were littered with the bodies of children and professors, slack jaws, maimed parts, dull, glassy eyes. She saw them take Harry, saw them kill Ron, saw them... and there was nothing to do but run. She would feel guilty later. She was seized by an uncontrollable urge to preserve her life. The blankness of a dead future caught her beneath the throat. And she ran.

She ran to the library, her old haven, that place she could always find the answers. The books were quiet now, though. Hermione heard muted screams through the thick walls, but they sounded so far away. Surreal. She shut her eyes and rocked her head against the stone behind her. She had been there for a few hours. She needed to pee, her limbs were beginning to ache, but she would not (_could not_) (_run_) move.

She thought of the one Death Eater whose mask had been stripped from his face - she hoped by one of the old Dumbledore's Army members - those cold, clean features with strands of blond hair that looked soft on his dark robes. Lucius Malfoy, of course, finally out of Azkaban. She could see it in the dark raggedness under his eyes. His boots may still have been expensive, but his eyes were like those of the victims in the corridors, the ones with blood adorning the paleness of their cheeks. But Lucius could still smile when he rendered his enemies as dead as he was.

She thought of Neville in his bed. Hermione had rushed to the boys' dormitory to reconvene with her boys. That was when she saw one of the Death Eaters - there were no discerning features this time - engulf Ron in the green light that so cleanly stripped him of his life. There he was on the floor in his paisley pajamas. Adorable, undignified, and dead. Then Harry, struggling against hands. A spell and he collapsed. But he was not dead - Hermione could see his chest still moving, and the incantation had been all wrong. And they would not want him dead - that honor would go to the Dark Lord. Impractical, but after all this time, Hermione supposed the victory would be far sweeter in person. Hermione almost jumped out from behind the door where she had hidden upon seeing the Death Eaters in the room, but her lungs tightened, and though she kept telling herself to attack - _get out there kill hurt what was the DA for you coward_ - but she could only quiver until the Death Eaters had gone. She looked up through her burst of hair and tears to see Neville in his bed. For a moment, Hermione hoped that they had not got him, that he was just sleeping, that he had slept through it all, and the Death Eaters had not seen him as a threat. But the blankets were not moving with the rhythm of his breathing, and Hermione stumbled from the room.

She thought about what her body might have looked like if she had jumped out at the Death Eaters. Draped over Ron probably. Face down on the floor, nose cracked. Finally with Ron in his room, there in her nightgown and in his pajamas, intertwined in mutual lifelessness, a marriage of corpses. And she was happy she had run.

She hated herself for it, but she was happy she had run.

So she stayed there, hidden in the niche. And she hoped they would never think to look too hard in the library.

---

II. Days

The castle was completely silent. Her ears rang with it as hour after excruciating hour turned into day after torturous day. She wanted to hum, whistle, murmur to herself, push down a shelf of books and watch the library topple around her, but she could not know if they would still find her. For all their festivities that could be heard to Hogsmeade after the Hogwarts slaughter, this new complete nothingness as they hovered at the door of the library, stalked with hushed robes through the aisles as she eluded them. Just enough. They stopped coming in a regular sweep, only to collect certain books now and then.

That was when she first saw Voldemort, the Dark Lord that had stretched Harry Potter's limbs until the muscles had torn - he had not let the bones break or jerk from their sockets, just that wrenching sound of ripping tissue. Hermione had watched from a window. She heard him scream. She watched hex after hex thrown at him there on the pike, watched Bellatrix spit on his sneakered feet, watched Snape strip him of his robes and leave him in Muggle clothing before breaking his wand before Harry's rolling eyes. Then she watched Voldemort kill him, the great green light that swept over the darkened hillside. She had screamed once, pounded her fists on the glass and slid down to curl herself back into the niche. In her dream that night, Harry whispered in her ear, _Coward_. As she lived and watched him die five thousand times, she heard the accusation.

_Coward_.

Yet she did not run into the Great Hall or the dungeons or Astronomy Tower where the Death Eaters must still be - _but so silent_ - and challenge them to a foolish duel to die in blazes of glory befit a Gryffindor who needed to avenge her best friend's death. She just hid.

_Coward_.

Then there was the day that she was found. Big round eyes in front of her prone face, frightening to wake up to. She squeaked and tried to back up, but her head collided with the stone wall, and she saw lights and darkness before the strangeness faded. Familiar and unassuming.

"Dobby?" she whispered.

"Sorry, miss," Dobby whispered back. "Dobby didn't know how to wake Hermione. Hermione should not be here." His eyes darted from side to side, checking the entrance.

"Do you know a way out, Dobby? Is there some place that I could slip through...?"

"Harry Potter is being dead, Hermione," Dobby said.

Hermione lowered her head and nodded. "I saw," she said.

There was a moment. Hermione wanted to see Dobby's face, but then she didn't.

"Hogwarts is being closed for a witch, although Dobby can leave. Dobby is afraid Hermione will have to be staying here until Dobby can find some way. Dobby _will_ try, because Hermione was the friend of Harry Potter."

_Coward_. Now she saw it in Dobby's face even as he searched and in the way he was rougher with her when he brought meals, impersonal. He used to love her, he used to love the Hermione who encouraged him as a house elf to be free. Hermione felt the slight but never questioned it. Day after day after day after day after day

_Coward_.

Then, when the voice of the dead became all she could hear in the silence, she stood up and left the sanctuary of her niche. She would not fight, but she would let herself be tortured and killed.

Hermione froze five feet from the entrance as a hand wrapped around her upper arm.

"I conquered Hogwarts. I own Hogwarts. The house elves belong to me. Do you think your presence has gone unnoticed?"

Her shoulders slumped and her dirty hair fell around her face in clumps as she stumbled to her knees. "Lord Voldemort."

---

III. Weeks

_"Hogwarts has fallen to me, and I am its master now. The wizarding world quells before my face as I sweep in shadows from city to city to country to country. My fingers stretch across the globe as they succumb. What are you, then, to me?"_

"Nothing."

She felt her cheek press into the richness of the carpet as his boot rested on her head. She was not chained. No magic held her in the room. No guard waited outside the unlocked door. She stayed there by her will and the pressure of Voldemort's hand over her, even when he was not in the room.

_"You are the coward among your friends. They died slowly, the death of heroes. But they are dead. You are alive. What is your life worth now?"_

"Nothing."

Weeks turned into months. She knew the routine by heart now, and she had never resisted. Her body was limp in his presence, malleable, defeated from the moment his Death Eaters stepped into Hogwarts. Her room was like a glass case with large windows on two sides that faced the corridors that flanked her room. Curtains were drawn at night so that she could undress and sleep. Death Eaters that recognized her would watch at three o'clock on Wednesdays when Voldemort came to her. He only gave a half an hour to quietly humiliate her. But she was there and knelt before him when he came.

_"You bow before me like one of my own, but you could never be those creatures to whom I gave my mark, my energy, my favor, you who mewl like a flea-ridden dog, you whose blood is not worthy to feed my vampires, whose soul is too impure for my dementors. What can you possibly offer me, my followers, those who give me their complete love and allegiance?"_

"Nothing."

She was permitted no interaction, but those personal enemies would bring things to the windows, bracelets, wands, broken children in ragged clothes, things that she recognized and drew away from, things that made guilt go rigid inside of her, a cold plank of ice against her spine. They never came in, although they could. They could come in and ravage her body into neat strips of bloody meat for Fenrir to feast upon. They could take her from her glorified prison and have her as a servant after the trouble that she had caused them. But they didn't. All they could do was try to make her cry, but her eyes merely pricked with salt. She had no tears.

_"I could present you to the world that you betrayed for your own skin, throw you naked and hungry before them, and my Death Eaters and the wizarding world and the Muggle world would be as one in their hatred of you, perhaps more hatred than they foster for me. What have you done for them?"_

"Nothing."

Voldemort was not as tall as she imagined him to be. His wrists were thin and his boots heavy despite his lithe frame. He practically looked delicate up close, but she knew better when he grabbed her throat and forced her face to the ground, when he pressed his boot against her head with just enough force to keep from crushing her skull completely, when he pulled her back up by her hair and pushed her to her bed. And she knew his skill with a wand, which stayed there on his belt, waiting for her to resist. But she never did.

_You are nothing to me. You're nothing but the echo of Harry Potter's friend, the stalwart sort to stand by his side until death. You're nothing but an impure Mudblood who is not worthy to touch my boot. Then why do I keep you alive?"_

"I don't know, my lord."

She did not know why she did not run.

---

IV. Months

There came the day when she walked out of her room - it could never be called a prison. Decked in rich fabrics unfit for her, softened by thick carpet and feather bed and velvet she never deserved. Voldemort threw her treachery in her face, and all she could do for eleven months was sink in it drowsily, wrap it around her like a scarf while whispering _Unclean_.

Her feet were bare and made just a brush of sound as she walked through the corridors of what was once Hogwarts. She could see only the slightest differences now, but she realized how much Hogwarts had been alive when it was a school. Its presence was empty, skeletal, but not hopeless despite the musty smell of the air. Hermione did not understand why Hogwarts could not turn on its new master until she looked into rooms and saw students. Students. It was the slap of a paper fan against her eyes, but she looked again. Slytherin colors. Ravenclaw colors. Hufflepuff colors. Gryffindor colors. Were they ghosts? Memories? Mockeries?

But they weren't. At the creaking of the door, they all turned to look at her, the wisp of a thing she had become despite the warm, healthy glow in his cheeks. They pointed and a murmur filled the otherwise silent castle. The professor looked up from his desk, and slow curve of lip made her swallow. She closed the door to Professor Snape's familiar face.

Her toes curled away from the cold stone as they led her to the entrance hall and out the doors. The patches caused by heated battle had grown over after the ravages of winter. The lake rippled with the wind, mildly reflecting the steel gray sky.

"You brought the clouds, not I," Voldemort said. "Ready, were you, to leave your self-made prison?"

"Where am I?" Wide eyes, wide pupils. Her head was too open, and she was inundated with the fullness of her surroundings.

She was down in the grass, moving, moving, running, reaching for life in the familiar things around her. She ran down the hill to the lake to the forest around the castle running for the town to meet the gate to return. Voldemort leaned against the door, arms crossed under his chest, watching her with narrow eyes as she slowly climbed the stairs to him.

"Nowhere to run to, Hermione?" he asked. His hand whipped out, grabbed her hair, bent her head back almost tenderly as he made her kneel. Her teeth clenched in shame as she obeyed him. "Who is left to take you in... but me?"

"Why would you take _me_ in? To throw me among the house elves and other poor Mudbloods to serve purebloods and whatever their twisted idea of poetic justice is? I would rather run." Even as her words snapped through sharp bouts of breath, she brought her face to the level of his boots.

"It is no less than you believe you deserve," he replied. He did not press her down - he had let go of her when she began speaking. "And it is no less than you deserve." Her breath misted the leather before them, and the dark circles under her lashes sparkled when he thought she was dry. His tongue touched the edge of his teeth when she raised her eyes.

"Is that what is left for me?" There was no accusation, no pleading, no anger, no resignation, nothing.

There was a clatter behind her, and Voldemort slid his wand into his sleeve. "Duplication spell. The wand broken was a duplication." He watched, his muscles singing in tension, as she pushed herself sitting and reached for her wand. He watched as the tips of her fingers touched the wood grain, seeking for recognition, wrapping around it familiarly. She stood, held her wand half-cocked, looked at him. He knew the calculation flickering behind her eyes from what he saw from any Death Eater who bared his or her arm to him for the branding of the Dark Mark.

"You have other uses than as a servant," Voldemort said. "As worthless as you were to your friends, perhaps you will find your value with your enemy. Unless, of course, after all this time you would like to finally martyr yourself for a dead cause. This is my world now, and even those such as you have their place."

She had her chance in that silent space with her wand in hand and his hands empty. She saw the flash of round lenses and green eyes. She saw white beard, a sea of red hair, Quidditch games.

Her wand was in his hand now. He opened the front door to Hogwarts, and she preceded him into the castle.

---

V. Years

She still wandered the halls of Hogwarts like a ghost, but no one stopped her between their classes, no one hit her or cursed her or even touched her. Bare feet against cold stone in the winter, fingers trailing against the walls. Sometimes, not very often, she would go outside and stand in the place where Harry died. Sometimes she would scare the boys in the Gryffindor dormitory ("who wants to be in Gryffindor? that's the house Potter was in, isn't it? no thank you") by staring at the beds where she watched Ron die and saw Neville dead in his sleep.

Sometimes she would cry at night, cry into the white bedsheets, curl her nails into the comforter and feel tears sliding down the sides of her face. Staring into the candlelight and having it burst at the corner of her eyes. The comforter would slip from her hands, and her nails would bite into the palm. Little crescent moon-shaped marks welling and staining the sheets. Her breathing would quicken, eyes wide, darkening.

_I'm not_, she would whisper, _I'm not I'm not I'm not like you Harry I'm not strong enough to die Everything's different now Everything's changed and nothing's changed. He's here now. You're dead and he's here and I'm here. What do you expect me to do?_

She hears the command to kill him. She has a wand. Kill him. She would turn over, smear his white skin gently, and he would turn and calm her breathing, take her air until her eyelids fluttered, taste the salt on her skin, hiss her softly into sleep. Just at night. He only touched her at night.

By day, she wandered.


	13. Green as Envy

**Title:** Green as Envy  
**Pairing:** Hermione/Voldemort, Hermione/Lucius  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Word count:** 1246 words  
**Challenge:** lvhgbetrayal Fuh-Q Fest Fic #16 - _DE victory, Hermione is bartered and sold as a slave to the Mafloy household. Malfoy (irrelevant which one(s) get possessive of their pet; V is covetous._  
**Disclaimer**: Not mine.

**I.**

There was a certain pleasure in watching a slave auction. Even the most pious could watch the degradation of a human being and grin with decidedly lupine teeth, immersed in the gratuitous dehumanization, observing form and body as though it were meat or pornography. The room was a seething mass of salivation and damnation, wreathed in the stench of arousal, blood, tears, rot, and unclean flesh.

Voldemort watched the proceedings from the back of the room in the shadows. His presence was keenly felt, and no one looked at him. His tongue ran over his lip as the entire Weasley family was brought to the auction platform. Stomach turned and face heated when fruit and rocks were thrown. The supreme of blood traitors, bane of the new world. Their individual prices were high. It was no surprise when Lucius Malfoy took the twins and the prized girl, leaving Arthur to Macnair for his butcher block and the rest to the whim of the crowd. The youngest boy, to Voldemort's quiet surprise, was bought by Bellatrix – he would not have guessed that her taste extended to the violently innocent. What became of the dead hero's best friend would be monitored and relished in the future.

He had watched the prominent members of the Order of the Phoenix sold off in a flurry of collective glee at the spoils of victory, at least those who had not been killed. The partition was widespread and almost impossible to pinpoint, but Voldemort kept a faded spider map in his mind of where they would be and how they would be used.

Another girl on the platform, the first of the female individuals, the female bodies for sale. She, like the rest, was naked and dirty, eyes downcast. Her hair was a bird's nest, tangled and oily, figure plain, fists clenched. Voldemort expected her hair to catch fire with the honest anger that seemed to spark around her. But she crouched, animal-like, as the auctioneer began to wax lyrical on her traits. She was a good one to buy and keep alive – this one would not be for the dungeon cell to slowly starve. The best thing for her was to put her to work with something in her hand… a water bucket or a quill. She was Mudblood, which lowered her price, but as the second best friend of the dead boy, she was still considerably expensive. And still young and modestly pretty. Useful in all respects. His fingers closed over the ends of the chair arms as the auctioning began, crimson lightning flashing from raised number to raised number. A showdown between Wormtail – _ragged rat, how did he survive?_ - Lucius, and Severus. The battle that he was most interested in was between the latter two. There were calmly explained skeins of reason, vastly different, shot with threads of anger and revenge between the two tense friends. But Lucius inevitably won – the Malfoy fortune was far more accommodating than the decaying Prince legacy.

Perhaps it was when Malfoy's hand curled around her arm and whispered so that only she could hear – Voldemort slid into her mind and stole the words – "You replace the elves you tried to free, my girl. You'll learn the value of breeding."

Perhaps it was when she looked up at Malfoy. The air between them grew intense, like the heat emanating from the mouth of a dragon, and Voldemort could see the spark of fury once again. Love not lost. Old vengeance that would be sated. On which side was left to be seen. She would be the elf and watch the other girl be the bitch. Unless she made him angry perhaps. Narcissa was more than open to Lucius's play with slaves these days if she could join in.

Or perhaps it was when her eyes turned for a brief second to lock with the glimmer of crimson in shadow and he saw a reflection of himself in the pinpoint of her pupils. The auctioneer announced the sale of Hermione Granger to Lucius Malfoy.

_Hermione_, the word hissed in his head, melting from the impassive navy into a vivid green of envy.

**II.**

There were simple reminders that she still lived here and there among both idle and important discussion and debriefing among his Death Eaters. She was a capable worker, beautiful in green, fine to look at but despicable to touch, stubborn in heart but pliant in action. Severus had paid amply to borrow her for his library. But nothing beyond that.

She was nothing but a flutter of wings in the back of his mind – Voldemort was a busy man as he built his empire, drawing out more traitors and beginning his campaign against the Muggle world. Sometimes before he fell asleep, he would see a dark glimpse of that spark, flame that turned to green before fading into darkness.

**III.**

It was when she was brought to him for punishment that he began to realize what that emerald sparkle behind his eyes meant, and he felt the poisonous tendrils of self-loathing. This sort of feeling was impossible – most feeling save anger and exultation had been purged from his soul – although he did not have so much emotion before his transfiguration.

She was thrown to his feet, naked and bound, a slash of blood along her cheek and her hair cut short like a boy. But she was not a boy, was she? His confusion made him angry, and he lashed out at Lucius. He replied with the petulance typical of when he was attacked. She had assaulted Narcissa and attempted to free the twins. The man was fiercely protective of his wife.

Voldemort noticed that Lucius was inadvertently protective of his servant when Voldemort took her hand and gently guided her to her feet. She was trembling so beautifully – endearing, that one. No, not endearing, not… Lucius stared with all the attention of an owner where Voldemort held her. But Voldemort would not jerk away as was his wont with that swirl of emotion deep in his belly.

Lucius wanted her punished, a special punishment, otherwise Lucius would have punished her himself. He wanted her to see dead boy's severed head that Voldemort kept in his bedroom – maybe that would frighten her. Voldemort was positive that it would. The thought of the taste of horror lining her skin made his mouth water, and he assented, taking Hermione's hands in the manner of a charming gentleman.

As the three of them walked through the halls of Voldemort's vast home, Voldemort felt his fingers brush the edge of Hermione's shorn hair, closing around her neck. He could feel Lucius's tension and possessiveness as he took Hermione's wrist and pulled her closer to him. Voldemort took small satisfaction when Hermione jerked away from him. Lucius backhanded her, and she fell against Voldemort. His arms closed around her to keep them from falling. He took the opportunity to whip them into his room, and she was face to face with the staring head of Harry Potter.

The immediate perfume that filled the air made him push his self-questioning aside. He would take her from Lucius. He would take her. He would explore this delicious porcelain doll filled with fear, explore his reactions to her and her reactions to him.

And when he was done with her… perhaps Lucius could have the resulting, frozen shell of her. Lucius would have no trouble with her then.


	14. Harem

**Title:** Harem  
**Author/Artist:** Lunalelle  
**Pairing:** Hermione/Voldemort  
**Rating:** PG-13 for suggestion of abuse and dub con  
**Word count:** 658 words  
**Disclaimer:** Not mine.  
**Summary:** _She was one of many girls, but she was still singled out for the horror of his attention._ For the lvhgbetrayal FQF.

She was one of many girls who wandered listlessly in the room, the gilded cage of plush pillows and satin when it was only a prison… the prison in which they had been brought unconscious and stripped of their wands, of their clothes, of their dignity and identity. They were given new names, although these names were never used except among each other when the Dark ones were among them. There was one dusty window through which they could see the rays of the sun, turned dark in the grime, but something familiar nonetheless. Everything was colorless, tasteless, lifeless to them. They were taken, used, and discarded, occasionally killed, no longer student or wives or mothers but material wealth of the Dark ones.

She was the one the Dark Lord favored, the one with the thick bushy hair like a bird's nest, like Spanish moss covering her back. She was allowed to wear clothes – clothes too small for her and reminiscent of her Muggle heritage. Nothing skimpy or seductive, just small, for she was small now, too thin. Wasted away, her eyes blank as the Dark Lord's cold fingers wrapped around her wrist and his eyes glowed from behind his hood. None of the other girls saw his flesh. Only she ever did. Only she was allowed to run her hands over his smooth, powdery skin like soft stone. Only she was allowed to sleep in a bed with him. Only she felt the icy touch of his lips on her warmth that had slowly frozen under his ministrations. It was as if he had plunged an icicle into her stomach and the poisoned water now ran through her veins.

She once had so much spirit inside of her, a spirit unable to be restrained, vivacity clear in the bubbling energy she exhibited as she learned and shared her knowledge, in her determination, in her indignation. Those who remembered her from before mourned the loss of her soul and theirs – they could not help but notice her when the Dark Lord visited them simply for her sake. They never would have imagined that he would choose her, and they were not entirely sure why. They thought that she fought at the beginning – she used to be so driven, even when in chains. She used to come back with shakes caused by Cruciatus. But then the golden life that colored her skin and eyes began to drain away to silver, to thick. sharp blue ice.

Her face was dirty from dust, but she never cleaned herself in the bath provided. She never prepared herself or protected herself for her master like the other girls did for the Dark ones. They wondered if she did anything more than lie on her back and let him fill her with his cold, just let him do what he willed as her spirit left her, dancing in libraries and museums, dwelling on now trivial facts that she had so dutifully memorized. Her negligence yielded the only possible product, and her belly grew round and full with the Dark Lord's child.

The entire palace felt the Dark Lord's wrath when he saw the distension for the first time – he was immortal, strange and immortal, and he needed no child for his immortality, no child to steal his throne. Slowly, the ire died down and the crimson that colored his concubine's skin rubbed off of its own accord. Gentleness, or perhaps a mockery of gentleness, returned. She was fed more than the others. When the baby was stillborn, his rage returned. So it was only a matter of time before she was with child again now that the Dark Lord was trying to make an heir.

There were rumors that the Dark Lord was treating her, offering her books and perfumes and fabrics that she rejected, blank, marble eyes looking away, always away.

On her sixth month for the second child, her eyes met his.


	15. Incense

**Title:** Incense  
**Fandom:** Harry Potter  
**Characters:** Hermione, Voldemort  
**Prompt:** 012: Orange  
**Word Count:** 523 words  
**Rating:** PG  
**Notes:** For the Fanfic100 challenge.

Her eyes fluttered. She did not know how long she had been lying there, staring at the wood panels of the ceiling. The smoke curled in serpentine mist and billowed as it spread down the walls.

_Incense_, although the thought wisped away the moment after it occurred to her. It was in her head, filling it and dampening her thoughts. Sandalwood, maybe. And lavender. And jasmine. The scents mingled until they coated her tongue with dust and covered her mind with cotton. Was she sitting up or on her back, on pillows or blankets or stone or fiery coals? Fingers moved in front of her face, cutting through the orange-tinted smoke as though she were discorporeal and the smoke was solid.

"Feels simple, doesn't it?" A voice in the smoke as unintelligible as the flickering of candles. "The better to keep a witch like you sedated without destroying what's in here." She felt a hand in her hair, pushing her head. "We wouldn't want that, but a Mudblood such as yourself can hardly be let free now."

The voice was smoke itself, sinuous and sibilant, and she could suddenly understand it.

_Hermione_. She thought maybe he was hissing at her, although she did not know or question how she could translate the language. Her breath hitched as the point of a silver knife with the reflection of a candle pressed between her breasts. A few drops of blood grounded her finally, although the incense still worked its magic on her body. The man held the knife before her so that she could see the blood drip into her own reflection. That was her, she was bleeding, that was her.

"Your blood," he explained. "Do you know what a person's blood is used for in incantations or potions?"

"Always blood," she muttered, her tongue heavy and her mouth dry.

"In what?" he asked patiently.

"Control, I... think." She tried to bring her hand to her head to cradle it, shake it clear of the smoke, but she was just... too... tired... and she could not move her arms.

"Yes," he said, like a professor acknowledging a correct answer. "Control. And to control you rather than kill you is easily a more practical option, despite those who question my judgment."

Her blink took forever. "What?"

"The country is burning. Sacrifices for me. Blood boiling and skin crackling with heat. Can you smell them?"

"Are you...? I smell the..." She could not complete her sentence as the man brought the blood-stained knife to the tip of a wand. At least, she thought it was a wand. She could not quite remember the word. "People?"

"People, places, creatures. Even the night sky burns, Hermione. I wish you could have seen your friend as his smoke joined the others. One like everyone else, indistinguishable, undistinguished. It was what he always wanted."

"What?"

"You'll remember when you are under the... proper... restraints." His hand pulled her upright so that her back was against his chest.

The smoke glowed orange and smelled of eucalyptus.

"Voldemort," she murmured, her mind clearing.

"The Dark Lord to you, Hermione."

And the smoke cleared.


	16. Progression

**Title:** Progression

**Rating: **PG

**Word count:** 784 words

**Disclaimer:** Not mine.

**Prompt:** 001-003. Beginnings, Middles, and Ends

**Notes: **For Fanfic100 challenge. Again, a few themes repeated, but it's fun to play in drabbles anyway.

---

I.

It was when she started reading up on the spells that Voldemort was known for using. _Morsmordre._ The Unforgivables. The Protean Charm. Harry never really stopped to think what it meant that she compiled and altered them for their own needs - the two boys usually took the fact that she was knowledgeable for granted to the point that they did not even want to know. When Harry asked her about the Protean Charm, she thought she might be caught in her new hobby, but Harry shrugged it away. He trusted her judgment.

She thought that she would not get burned. She thought that she would not become the next Half-Blood Prince, with spells like _Sectusempra_ found in lost books that someone might use. She thought that she could control her desire to delve still deeper into the library where the bindings were muted in dust and the smell of old parchment and ink never came out of her clothes. She was stunned when she began to see the name "Riddle, Tom" in the back of the book, indicating that she was reading the very same books that Voldemort checked out half a century ago.

She really became afraid when she found the book that listed the proper anagram and the one spell, the one she could not find a reference of in any other book, written in the Dark Lord's own hand in the glossing margin. She knew that, before long, like Harry, she would use it.

And what would she become?

---

II.

They were such children. Off on an adventure to vanquish the terrible foe. Sleeping in the middle of a clearing with a fire burning to the side, curled next to each other. In their sleep, limbs had twined together, and they were knotted like one strange, thin creature with glasses, bushy hair, and freckles.

Voldemort was amused.

He circled the clearing, keeping to the shadows, and his boots made little noise distinguishable from the general clamor of the forest's night. With each angle, he noticed something different, new, particular - the spine of a book in an uncomfortable place, the enticing sight of the tips of their wands poking out here and there - so careless _tsk tsk_ - a hand in a highly inappropriate place, a shirt riding up the harsh line of ribs... It was fortunate for them that their escapade was so amusing to him, otherwise he would have killed them two weeks ago. Oh, he knew that it would have to be done eventually when they came too close to what they sought, but for now...

For know, he drank their nightmares, he followed them from the side, inconspicuous among their imaginary fears. He thought he might have been noticed by the girl, but she was also the one who fell asleep last and woke up first. In the firelight, her wide eyes would glimmer widely, and upon the secession of unconscious horror, she would jerk upright, looking around in disorientation. Then she would catch herself and slow her quickened heart before attempting conjure something suitable for breakfast. Voldemort liked how the two boys took advantage, but he also noted the few books that she brought with her on the journey, tomes that most people would not think would be useful in the darkest wild. Titles that he never expected that a friend to Harry Potter would be allowed to read.

He required a bit of time to consider her.

---

III.

Hermione knew she would be the first to die. Strung up on a tree, hands bound at an awkward angle, the three of them forming a triangle so that Harry could watch them die. Voldemort paced between them. His step was elegant and understated, but the only word to describe his mood was glee. Because he had won. Voldemort won. And now Harry Potter could watch his friends die. But not Ron first - no, Harry had to be given a taste of the full anguish he would feel. Neither Voldemort nor Hermione were stupid. They knew that Ron was more important to him than her. Hermione thought, there with the rough bark digging into her back, that she could hate Harry for it.

The smooth wood of the Dark Lord's wand caressed her under her jaw, and he turned to see Harry's face as he whispered in her ear, "You could have been mine." She understood, and her face grew pale.

A spell. Not _Avada Kedavra_. There was no need to hurry. She could hear shouting from the boys, but it seemed insignificant. There was not even any pain, and for that she was grateful. There was just... weight... smothering... close.


	17. Bell Jars

**Title:** Bell Jars  
**Characters:** Hermione, Voldemort  
**Other characters:** various  
**Prompt:** 018: Black  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Word count:** 782 words  
**Summary:** _He calls it his museum, a still homage to the past._ Also for the Sectumsempra Challenge at Darkones.

---

He calls it his museum, a still homage to the past. He considered portraits, then sculptures, to adorn his chambers, but chose this instead.

It is better to enjoy their faces now when they're dead, when their bodies are frozen, drifting in the potion around them, young, old, sick, healthy, ripped from spells or unblemished, perfectly preserved in their last moments or properly arranged.

At first, they floated, hair wild in the liquid, but it has been years, and there is no movement in the water to make them float.

He walks from one to the other almost every night, eight glass jars glowing green in the light.

The first jar is Draco Malfoy. Lucius asked him why he did not want Harry Potter as his first piece, why pristine Harry Potter floated with the decayed Albus Dumbledore down in the entrance hall and not in his room, why Draco was a trophy, and not Harry? Voldemort relished Lucius's hurt, but the boy was quietly his, his Dark Mark displayed with a torn sleeve. He wanted Draco there, a reminder of betrayal, potential, for his Death Eaters and for himself. And he tasted Lucius's agony every audience with him as Voldemort paced between the eight.

The second jar is Ronald Weasley, followed by his sister, Ginny Weasley. When Lucius told him of his diary Horcrux opening the Chamber of Secrets in his stead by possessing Ginny - the girl who Harry loved, he felt in his dreams of worms crawling under his skin. These two were footnotes in Harry Potter's life - no one remembered them, although Harry Potter died trying to protect them - but Voldemort remembered their artless fervor. They earned their place here with pure fire. The color of their hair had faded slightly, but it was still the brightest color in the open room created for them. Sometimes he hears a whisper of himself from the girl, but most days, there is silence.

The fourth jar contained the tortured, broken body of Severus Snape. This was a different sort of betrayal than Draco's, for it surprised him, even hurt him to have Severus whip around and curse him when he had the perfect opening to kill Harry. It had been in vain, yes, but Severus was one of his favorites, if he could be said to have favorites. No friend, but what he thought was a good servant. Whereas Draco's body was beautiful in its purity, Voldemort had torn this one with its own spell that it created. And now he was still in his own potion - except sometimes he moved. Voldemort did not know why.

The fifth jar held the body of Neville Longbottom, bruised and doubled over like a fetus, but Voldemort liked to look at the boy that could have been. Luna, his prophetess rolling about pillows and quiescent, softly protested his presence in the chambers, but she did not protest too hard, and he never killed her.

The sixth jar is Minerva McGonagall. He remembered her when she was young, when her hair was completely black and there were no wrinkles on her face. He looked at her, saw ravages of age and time, looked at his distorted reflection along the curve of the jar, and felt relief. Her form made him smile.

The seventh jar is Alastor Moody - simply that he finally caught the old goat was an achievement, especially after his servant made the man far more cautious than he already was. The seventh is a proper trophy, and he is proud to have it in his collection.

The eighth jar brought him in a full circle so that he is across from Draco Malfoy. He thought it fitting to have Draco stare at a Mudblood for the rest of his internment, but the irony is only part of saving her for last. He had been close to putting her in the same jar as Dumbledore and Harry and withdrew her at the last minute to his chamber. She was unmarked, in her Hogwarts uniform, with a prefect's badge and Head Girl's pin in her pocket, one of Harry Potter's best friends, and when he killed Harry, she whirled around to hit him with a Cruciatus. It hit him full force, and he fell back - that alone gave her a place among the others. He killed her when the spell grew weak twenty seconds later, watched as she was placed into her jar and drifted down. He kept her badge and pin in a box he placed next to the jar.

Walking from one to the other in a full circle, and he is pleased with his collection.


End file.
